


Lightning War

by Rokesmith



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 09:19:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 117,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6188845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rokesmith/pseuds/Rokesmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bolt from the blue shatters the STAR Labs team. Scattered and alone, they’re forced to seek out new allies as the line between enemies and friends begins to blur. And all the while, their real adversary watches from the shadows and waits.</p><p>A sequel to 'Zero-Sum Game'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Strike

**Author's Note:**

> As mentioned in the summary, this story starts 8-9 months after 'Zero-Sum Game', so if you haven't read that, you should probably do so first because otherwise some aspects of the setup (and several of the characters) won't make much sense. The reason for this is that having changed the game more than a little during that first story, I found myself with a myriad of leftover ideas for where I could take everyone next. So the sequel was born. 
> 
> In terms of alternate continuity, I've chosen to ignore pretty much all of Season 2's Zoom/Earth-2 arc. This is mostly because I had no idea where the actual canon was going with it. However, you can imagine that most events outside that arc happened reasonably closely to how they did on the show, with a few exceptions which I hope will be obvious as we go along. 
> 
> Finally, just to warn everyone, this is a rather long fic, and I've chosen to tag it in such a way as to avoid spoiling any plot twists. I have no idea how important people may consider these tags, but I feel I owe my audience the disclaimer. Despite this, the warnings and rating are accurate, and the violence is canon-typical; I don't think there's anything in here worse than you'd find in an episode of 'Arrow' and the language is what you'd expect from adults who don't have to worry about broadcast regulations.

The woman in black came off the interstate at the second exit for Central City. The highway dropped down from the hills as she followed the signs for the Van Buren Bridge.

She drove a Honda Civic, one of the most common cars in the USA. Late model, dark blue and inconspicuous. The licence plates were brand new. They concealed the fact that the car had been stolen from Star City two weeks earlier. Though the woman in black didn’t know it, the owner had only just got around to reporting the theft, and only then to save an argument with his insurance company.

It was a hot day in early June, and the middle of the week, so the traffic heading downtown was light. It made it easier for the woman to follow the route she’d memorised without needing to refer to her map or, worse still, the car’s satellite navigation.

She turned away from the bridge just before she got to Central Avenue and followed a path around the edge of the business district, past the forest of rebuilt skyscrapers, staying parallel to the river. Then, as she reached what had once been the city’s industrial quarter, she headed back towards the water and the gigantic disk-shaped building that stood at its edge.

She’d never gotten this close to STAR Labs before. Its size made it seem almost unreal, even before the catastrophe that had forever put it on the map. If, as some people claimed, humanity was living in a new world after that December night, then STAR Labs was most definitely at its centre.

The woman in black knew not to drive past the front of the building. Instead she took a left turn into a multi-storey parking lot that had been built to act as overspill for the lab’s main lot. Since the disaster, it had been adopted by the city, particularly as a place for employees of the warehouse clubs which were slowly but surely creeping closer to the sleeping behemoth.

This meant that at that time of day, the lot was almost deserted. There were no cars on the fourth level, where the woman in black stopped the Honda and carefully reversed into a spot that afforded full view of the lab’s front. 

She spent a few minutes inside the car just listening, then walked around the back, opened the trunk, and took out the rifle. It was heavy, but she was used to the weight. She attached the scope, slotted home the magazine, unfolded the bipod support and leant it against the lot’s low wall. The position was far from comfortable, but she had been in worse.

The sun was almost directly overhead. The shadows of the wall would conceal the weapon’s barrel from anyone looking up.

She flipped open the scope and looked down it. The lab’s main entrance was seven hundred yards away, directly ahead. She could see two cars parked next to each other a little way from the main doors. Anyone walking towards them would be face-on to her for at least ten seconds before they turned right.

Seven hundred yards. A bullet moving at 2,500 feet per second would take 0.8 seconds to cross that distance. The sound of the shot would take twice as long.

The woman in black steadied the stock against her shoulder. She calculated and recalculated for range, wind speed, air temperature and pressure, bullet drop, potential target motion. And she waited.

* * *

Barry backed right up to the door of the Pipeline, braced himself, and waited for a few endless seconds until Iris’ voice came over the suit’s intercom.

“Okay, Barry, are you ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Cisco – sorry, _Vibe_ , are you ready?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Caitlin?”

“I’m ready.”

He could hear her grin over the radio, taking her time, checking the internal cameras to make sure everyone actually was where they said they’d be.

“Okay. Take your marks… get set… go!”

When they’d started these games/tests/training exercises with Wells, it had just been Barry seeing how much power and control he could get out of his speed. Tricks of the speedster trade. Since then, though, things had gotten far more complicated, but much more fun.

He kept his promise not to move early, but soon as he’d heard the full word, he started running. He tore down the lab corridors in a blaze of reflected lightning, taking turns at random in case Cisco had left any surprises near the start line. His senses were moving so quickly he seemed to be only jogging, even though he was moving at nearly 150 miles an hour down the passageways.

The lower levels of STAR Labs were a labyrinth of barely-used storerooms and labs directly connected to the accelerator. Barry’s caution cost him a few seconds, and he kicked himself to realise that this time Cisco had slowed him down with paranoia alone.

Using the elevators had been designated as cheating – too easy and much too slow – so he went past them and charged up the west-side emergency stairs. He was just starting to think it would be that easy when he had to skid to a stop three levels from his destination. The entire stairway above him was frozen solid, ice on the steps and malicious stalactites stabbing down.

He hesitated for a split-second, and then dashed through the side door into the level which housed the bioengineering department. Caitlin’s home turf. They were herding him and he knew it.

A second frozen-over passageway forced him into a straight run towards the other emergency stairs. But that allowed him to get up a little extra speed; just enough to dodge the pulses of sound which roared out of a junction and hit the opposite wall hard enough to dent it.

“Too slow, _Vibe_!”

He raced up the last flights of steps and onto the Cortex level. Two more corridors to victory. But the suit sometimes had disadvantages, and he didn’t notice the temperature falling until he turned a corner and ran straight into a wall of fog. It was so thick he could barely see to the end of his arm, and it stopped him almost completely, wondering whether he should just blow it away or if that was part of the trap.

His body was stationary, but his mind was still running far faster than a normal human’s could, so he felt the rising vibration through the floor and glanced up to see a wave of almost solid sound bearing down on him. Cisco hadn’t been downstairs after all.

He only had an instant, but that was enough. He poured energy into his whole body, making it shimmer and dived straight into the oncoming wave. He felt it roll harmlessly over him and then burst out of the fog into the Cortex.

“And the crowd goes wild!”

Iris turned her chair around, raised an eyebrow and clapped. Slowly.

“Oh come on,” Barry said. “You’ve got to admit that was pretty cool.”

Cisco dropped into a spare seat. “Oh man, I was sure we had you that time. How’d you get past my boom?”

Barry grinned. “I didn’t. I went straight through it. Guessed the frequency and vibrated to match.”

“Huh,” Cisco said. “I did not know you could do that.”

“Neither did I. So… thanks, I guess.”

Caitlin stepped out of the dispersing fog bank. “And you can still hear properly? Sit down, I want to check your ears.”

“I’m fine, really,” Barry replied.

Iris shook her head. “Come on, Barry, you know the rules. We play the games and everyone gets a check-up afterwards.”

“Fine.”

Barry zipped over to the bench in the side lab and waited until Caitlin shone a light into each of his ears to check for any damage. He flinched a little at her touch, but they were both used to that. Her hands were still unseasonably cold. No matter what modifications Cisco made to the thermal suit keeping her body temperature at normal-for-her – around half that of a normal person – the results never seemed to reach her fingers.

“Nice trick with the mist, by the way,” he said.

“Thank you,” Caitlin replied absently, apparently deciding that that she may as well test his pupil response while she had the light to hand. “I raised the humidity with the air conditioner.”

“Well, you know the second rule of Flash Tag,” Barry said. “Being clever isn’t cheating.”

Caitlin smiled. “No sign of any damage. Your turn, Cisco.”

Cisco gave a theatrical sigh but sat down without protest and let Caitlin check to make sure he hadn’t blown out his own eardrums with one of his sonic attacks. They weren’t certain exactly what the limits of Cisco’s new active powers were yet. It had only been two months since they’d so memorably emerged, at the worst possible time for Mark Mardon.

While Caitlin checked him over, Cisco glanced at the readout of her suit, which was now barely more than a long-sleeved under-shirt. “How long did it take you to freeze all that water anyway?”

Caitlin put the light down and tugged at her sleeve. “About two minutes. I ran the collectors at seventy percent.”

“Why not a hundred?”

“I didn’t want to overtax them.”

“Trust me, Caitlin, they can handle it.”

Barry took the opportunity to change out of his suit and then clean up some of the results of their game. It would be hard explaining to Joe where all that ice came from without breaking the first rule of Flash Tag: we do not tell Joe and Crystal about Flash Tag. When he got back, Cisco and Caitlin were in the midst of some sort of technical discussion about her suit and his powers, and Iris was checking emails on her cell phone.

“You’ve got to switch that off some of the time,” he told her.

“Barry, I am supposed to be working,” Iris responded.

“You are working,” Barry said. “You’re getting an exclusive sneak peek behind the scenes with the Flash.”

“Yeah. One I can never, ever write about.” 

“So what are you working on?”

“There’s a rumour going around that some city interests want to use the metahumans as a tourist trap. To make up for the businesses who say they’re going to move out if the mayor doesn’t take proper action on the problem, whatever that means.”

“Meta… tourism?” Barry repeated.

Iris grinned. “Why not? Come to Central City, see the Fastest Man Alive. And his friends, of course,” she added as Cisco and Caitlin looked up from their debate.

Barry shrugged. “I guess it beats ‘Start your business in Central and hope it doesn’t get literally knocked over by a guy who can control the weather’.”

“The economics of superpowers,” Caitlin reflected. “You could do a whole series.”

“Yeah, and bore people to death,” Cisco said. “Caitlin, people want to read about thrilling high-speed heroics, not the local stock market or whatever.”

“Says the man with a subscription to Soldering Iron Monthly,” Barry responded.

“People are interested,” Iris told them. “Like it or not, this city is affected by metahumans in more ways than just rescues and weird bank robberies.”

Barry held up his hands. “Okay, why don’t we all go and have an effect somewhere that serves food.”

“We are going out, aren’t we?” Caitlin said. “Eating so much in here is not sanitary.”

“So you’ve said, a few million times,” Cisco remarked.

“We’re definitely going out,” Iris agreed. “I didn’t come all this way to eat lunch in a science lab. I say… Marty’s Pizza.”

“All opposed?” Barry asked.

Nobody objected. They collected their coats and made sure they had their cell phones. Barry did one last quick sweep of the building to check for any leftover mess and waited in the atrium until the others caught up.

“I thought you were going to meet us there,” Iris said as they walked out into the parking lot.

Barry shook his head. “Nah, I feel like taking it slow today.”

Then something hit him, and the world stalled.

Everything and everyone around him came to a sudden terrible halt. The light shifted and he could almost see the beams crawling through the clear blue sky. Iris, Cisco and Caitlin turned to statues around him. He could see every detail of Iris’ face, her long lashes floating gently in the breeze, her pupils shifting as the sunlight shone on them, and her bright, amazing smile.

He couldn’t feel what hit him. A wave of numbness was sweeping through his body, crashing headlong into the accelerated senses as they screamed desperately for information. Everything was starting to blur and tilt; it was as though the ground was reaching up to steady him. Some part of his mind that could still focus said _shock_.

Iris’ face had changed. The smile was gone. Her eyes were wide. Something awful had happened.

Then, as the asphalt was half way to him, something rolled over them; a long, angry drone filling the air and hitting him harder than Cisco’s wave had done. It seemed to fill his head, ricocheting around his skull but getting further and further away as he finally struck the ground and everything snapped back.

Someone was screaming, “Barry! Barry!” over and over. He tried to tell them where he was, but the words didn’t sound right. His chest was wet, and it was getting hard to breathe.

Someone caught hold of his hand and held it tightly. He thought was squeezing back but he couldn’t be sure.

Then everything went clear, and he could see them. Iris, Caitlin and Cisco. But they were so far away. The entire world was rushing away down a long tunnel. It was the lightning bolt all over again. But there was no light this time, only darkness.

* * *

Henry Allen walked across the beach through the last light of a summer evening. The first time he’d been out here, the ocean, the unlimited blue stretching from horizon to horizon, had been terrifying. Fourteen years in a sequence of small, hard rooms had left marks on him deeper than he ever realised, until he’d stood there, shaking at the sheer scale of it. He didn’t remember the world being so big.

And then Barry had taken his arm and they’d walked down to the sea together and splashed in the surf like they used to when he was so much smaller and swinging along with one hand in Henry’s and the other in Nora’s. They’d all been there that day; the new family that Barry had found. Iris and Joe having running and swimming races that Henry knew went back a long time. Cisco staying on the beach, building the most absurd sandcastle Henry had ever seen, while, nearby, Caitlin sat in a deck chair beneath a huge white sunhat and looked at the water with something like longing in her eyes.

Henry had faced his fear that day, and every day after, taking walks in the sand and the water until the distance to the horizon didn’t seem so scary and the summer sun had burned away the bleach of fourteen years inside.

The savings and investments he’d made long ago had served him well, and provided him with plenty of money to keep up a life of leisure, but he could feel himself beginning to grow restless. He’d seen the great sequoias, he’d seen the snow that winter, and now he’d learned to walk by the ocean. He was slowly and painfully teaching himself to live in the world again, where he could do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted to, and no warden, guard or schedule was going to argue with him. Back in his rented apartment, he’d started making notes on whether it was possible to get his licence back from the AMA, capped by a big question mark over who’d want to be treated by a doctor who’d served time for murdering his wife.

He was almost back to the apartment when something made him pause. A switch tripped in his brain; an alert that he was being watched. It filled him with fear, ready to act, to fight or run. He fought it down, telling himself it was just a false alarm and that there was nothing to be frightened of. He stood still on the sidewalk, just to be sure, then made himself turn his back, climb the stairs and go inside.

The air conditioner had kept the room blissfully cool. Henry went straight to the fridge and opened a beer. The contrast between the hot day and the ice-cold drink made him shiver, one of the things he hadn’t realised he’d missed so much and swore not to take for granted.

He put the beer on the counter and started thinking about dinner. Then someone knocked on the door, three loud and heavy blows.

Panic spiked through him again, this time freezing him in place. The knocking came again, and it took all of Henry’s will to walk towards the door, whispering to himself with every step that he was safe, and he could always call Joe or Barry if something happened.

Except, when he opened the door, it was Joe West he found standing outside in the dark. His grey summer suit was in perfect order, and he was standing stiffly, almost at attention. His expression was nearly blank, but not so empty that Henry couldn’t see what was left. It was a look he knew, that he’d first seen when he’d been training in a hospital so many years earlier and a senior consultant had walked past him on the way to tell a man in his late twenties the cause of the headaches he’d presented with.

“Joe, what a surprise,” Henry heard himself say, trying to keep his eyes away from the other man’s face, hoping he was wrong, hoping it would go away and hoping most of all that it didn’t mean what he knew it did.

“Henry,” Joe said, and the quiet, gentle tone put another nail into the coffin. “Can I come in?”

Henry didn’t speak. He just stepped back, and Joe came in and closed the door behind him. Henry couldn’t ignore it any longer.

“Joe, what’s happened?”

“Henry, you should sit down.”

The police, like doctors, are trained to give the worst news. Henry remembered how it went. He sat down. Joe sat opposite him. Henry could see the pain now. He almost heard the words before Joe said them.

“Henry… this afternoon, there was a shooting at STAR Labs. Someone shot Barry. And he… he didn’t make it.”

There were too many things that didn’t make sense. “But…” Henry murmured, struggling for words. “How… is that possible?”

“We don’t know,” Joe answered. “We think… they used a rifle. He never saw it coming.”

“Was anyone else hurt?” Henry asked, if only because he knew Barry would want to know.

Joe shook his head. “No.”

Breathing ached. Everything else was numb. But he knew that would fade, and then the pain would come.

“Henry,” Joe said, “I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” Henry whispered, because Joe had lost a son too.

Henry knew there were tears in his eyes. He wiped them, clearing the world enough to see the red in Joe’s. Joe didn’t look at him. He reached into his pocket and took out an envelope.

“Henry… Barry wanted me to give this to you if anything happened to him.”

Henry took the envelope automatically. His eyes slid over the words, seeing them but unable to make sense. He tried again, a little harder, and the pieces began to come together.

“Have you read this?”

Joe nodded. “He asked me to. He found the one I wrote for him and Iris.”

“You should go,” Henry said. “Iris needs you. They’ll all need you.”

“But…”

“ _Go_!” Henry shouted. He bit it back, forced it down, making the tears rise up all over again. “ _Please_.”

Joe nodded. He stood up and walked towards the door. He was almost gone when something slid sideways into Henry’s mind, a concern that seemed to come from so far away.

“Joe… if the Flash… won’t that be on the news?”

Joe shook his head slowly, sadly. “It didn’t happen to the Flash, Henry. It happened to Barry.”

Then he left Henry alone, learning how to breathe again, listening to the silence of the room and the beating of his heart as he forced himself to read the words his son had written.

_March 15 th, 2016_

_Dad,_

_I hope you never have to read this, but if you do, it means something’s happened to me._

_You were right. The world is a dangerous place. I try to be careful, but I want to make sure it’s less dangerous for people who can’t defend themselves like I can. That’s why I can’t stop being a cop and I can’t stop being the Flash._

_I know you think you let me down, that you should have been there for me growing up. But you did teach me. All those times they wanted you to confess to mom’s murder and take a plea bargain, you never did. You taught me to do the right thing no matter what happens. You taught me to fight for truth and justice just as much as Joe did._

_You said you were proud of the man I’ve become. I’m only that man because of you. My name is Bartholomew Henry Allen, and I will always be proud to be your son. The lightning only made me fast. You, Joe, Iris, Caitlin, Cisco, you’re the ones who made me the best person I could be. You made me a hero._

_I love you, dad._

_Barry_

Henry read the letter, and read it again. And after a while the crinkling of the paper and the sound of his breath wasn’t enough. He needed something to remind him that the rest of the world was still there.

His fingers found the control for the TV, and by some instinct, one of the more local channels. Infomercials bombarded the silence, chasing it away with meaningless sound. Then ten minutes of sports. And then the local news, and a single item that Henry barely heard.

“A police officer was shot and killed in Central City today. The CCPD has refused to comment on whether the act was random or targeted. The officer’s name has not been released, but we are told that the family has been informed.”


	2. Divided and Fallen

Crystal Frost found Iris on the fourth level of the multi-storey parking lot that faced STAR Labs.

“You shouldn’t be up here,” she said gently.

“Why not?” Iris responded, still looking out towards the lab. “It’s not a crime scene anymore.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I’m working,” Iris told her.

Crystal sighed. “Iris, do you want me to call your dad?”

Iris finally turned around. “No,” she said. “No I don’t.” She took a breath, walked straight up to Crystal and looked her in the eye. “Detective Frost, have you made any progress in your investigation? At all?”

“Iris, I can’t discuss an open case.”

“Is it still open?” Iris demanded. “Because it’s been a month and you haven’t made an arrest and haven’t even brought anyone in for questioning for two weeks. My dad would have –”

Crystal cut her off. “Your dad can’t, Iris. You know that. He knows that.”

“You wouldn’t be saying that if Barry wasn’t just a CSI. If he’d been a cop or people really knew who he was...”

“Iris, stop!” Crystal snapped. “Barry was a cop. Whatever else he was, he was one of us. When Captain Singh gave me this case he told me I could have whatever I needed and made me promise I would do everything I could no matter how long it took. And I swear to you, Iris, I will find out who killed Barry.”

“I know who killed him,” Iris said quietly. “You need to find who shot him.”

They stood silently, watching each other. Crystal knew how good Iris was at hiding her emotions, and waited to see if there was more. But there wasn’t, so eventually Crystal asked, “Can I give you a ride somewhere?”

Iris nodded. “Okay.” She followed Crystal to the car. “Drop me at the hockey stadium. I can meet Linda there.”

Crystal, who had always been a baseball fan, wondered why the CCPN sports reporter was at a hockey rink in July. Iris must have seen her confusion.

“She’s interviewing the team about their latest sponsorship deal and the new uniforms. She says they have to do something to keep the fans reading her column in summer.”

Then Crystal’s dash radio squawked. “All units, all units, bank alarm at Thirty-Second and Weaver.”

Crystal glanced at the nearest junction and summoned a mental map of the city. Even after nine months this side of the bridge, it was fuzzier than she would have liked, but she was already crossing 28th Street and didn’t think Weaver was more than seven or eight blocks down.

She slammed the car to a halt as soon as she could. “I’m sorry, Iris.”

“Come on,” Iris protested, “I’m just going to follow you anyway.”

“No chance, Ms West,” Crystal responded, trying to shake the feeling she was telling off a teenager. “Out!”

Iris grabbed her bag and hopped out of the car. Crystal wondered for a moment how long it would take her to hail a cab, then she hit the siren and roared out into the protesting traffic, calling into her radio that she was on her way.

The traffic was heavier than it should have been at this time of day. Summer tourists coming to enjoy some time by the lake. She had to dodge around at least one lost-looking minivan and perform a high-speed turn to get onto 32nd Street. After that, the way was pretty clear and the cars had the good sense to get out of her way as she slipped across lanes into any gap that would let her cut a few seconds from her journey.

Weaver was nine blocks down, but there was already a police line forming around the perimeter. She skidded to a stop and waved her badge long enough for them to let her through.

The front of the bank took up an entire block and there was an irregular line of patrol cars level with the entrance. Crystal slotted hers into one of the gaps and then sprang out, keeping her head down as she ran over to where the senior patrol officer – a Sergeant Kelly – was giving orders into his radio for the containment.

“What’s the situation?” she asked.

Kelly barely glanced up. “Silent alarm tripped. Two suspects, armed, inside with bank staff and customers. You taking charge, detective?”

Crystal shook her head. “I’m just here to help. What about containment?”

“Block’s been sealed off. SWAT is seven minutes out.” Kelly grimaced. “No weird crap. Yet.”

Working in a city where officers had to make those kinds of statements made Crystal wish she’d stayed in Keystone. Then she focussed, drew her pistol and levelled it over the hood of the car just as the bank’s front doors opened.

There were two of them, tall and almost certainly male, wearing plain dark clothes that looked like military surplus with some sort of body armour over the top. The one on the right was bigger, bulkier and had an odd sort of helmet that covered his whole face and had high-tech goggles where his eyes should have been. His partner was smaller, leaner and hiding under a ski mask. They had heavy sports bags in each hand, probably filled with the day’s takings.

Kelly glanced at Crystal and then flipped his handset to a speaker. “This is the police. Drop the bags, get down on the ground and put your hands on your head.”

Neither man moved. Kelly repeated the instructions. The robbers shared a twitchy glance and then dropped the bags.

“Down on the ground! Hands on your head!” Kelly ordered.

Crystal thought she saw another look exchanged. She checked her gun again and took aim at the legs of the bigger man.

But it was the smaller one who moved. He took half a step back, settling into a runner’s posture, and then his body blurred, but instead of moving forwards or backwards, he spun on the spot, transforming into a whirling black vortex.

“Oh, shit!” Kelly gasped.

Crystal grabbed the microphone from his frozen fingers and yelled, “Meta! Meta! Meta!”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the bigger robber, shielded by his partner’s rotation, swing his hands behind his back and take aim at the cars with something she didn’t recognise but was unmistakably a weapon. Before she had a chance to speak, he’d fired.

She felt something hit her, like a wave breaking against her body, and the world started to spin. She stumbled, falling to her knees, trying to focus enough to fight the feeling that she was trapped inside the metahuman’s super-powered tornado. All around her, officers were stumbling out of cover, trying to find their balance while others, like Kelly, simply clung to the cars for dear life as everything tilted over and over again.

She didn’t dare look at the spinning metahuman, but she heard his rotation reach a crescendo and had a sudden instinct for what would happen next. She grabbed Kelly and threw them both at the pitching ground, praying it would be there when she arrived. And as she did so she heard a sequence of shrill whistles and then a clattering, crashing noise like hailstones hammering on iron railings. Someone yelled in pain. Glass shattered. Tires burst with flat thuds.

The world kept on turning even as she heard footsteps pounding into the distance, the sound of a car engine and a crash as something slammed through the barricade. She didn’t dare open her eyes until she felt the spinning start to slow, focussing on her breathing and on not throwing up. Gradually, the nausea faded away and she lay for a moment, watching as something small and round rolled past the end of her nose. Then she pushed herself up to her knees.

All of the car’s windows had been shattered. She moved herself delicately around the glass to get up. There were two small circular holes in the back doors, whatever had made them had passed clean through. Every other car she could see had been hit at least once.

Further away, the rest of the cops were slowly trying to get up. Several of them had vomit around their mouths. Two were still down, one on her back, breathing in slow, shallow gasps but still breathing. The other was on his side, collecting fellow officers as they went through the first aid kits to stop the bleeding from his leg. Kelly was calling for an ambulance.

She stumbled up the steps towards the bank just as the door opened again and a young man in a guard uniform stuck both his hands out, followed by his head. Smart boy.

“Detective Frost, CCPD,” Crystal said. “Any more inside?”

“No,” the guard answered. “Just… the two that came out. Are… they gone?”

Crystal looked past him at the mixture of faces. People just trying to do their jobs or get through the day. This was probably the most awful thing they’d experience all year. Perhaps all their lives. She envied that a little.

“I need you to stay inside. You’ll be safe in here. They’re gone.”

“Sure.” The guard stepped back inside and slammed the door.

Crystal’s steps back towards the cars were much firmer. “There’s a lot scared hostages in there,” she called. “Send some officers in to keep them calm and start taking statements. Put the perimeter back together, three blocks out, have traffic track the vehicle and… I’ll deal with the press.”

She’d caught sight of Iris’ head bobbing amongst the officers behind the damaged cordon. Iris had managed to zero in on Kelly and had her cell phone at the level of his jaw, poised to record.

“Ms West, this is a crime scene. You’ll need to move back beyond the cordon.”

She got the cell in her face in return. “Can you tell me what happened here, detective?”

“No, Iris, I can’t,” Crystal replied. “But I’m sure there’ll be someone at the perimeter you can talk to. You probably have at least fifteen minutes before any other reporters get here.”

Iris held her gaze for a few seconds, then tapped her cell phone, turned on her heel and strode towards the web of crime scene tape. She was just reaching it when it parted to let an SUV come through and stop in front of her. Joe West got out of the driver’s side and exchanged a few words with his daughter before she kept going.

Cisco Ramon clambered out of the passenger door and followed Joe. He and Iris walked past each other without speaking a word.

“Detective Frost,” Joe said.

“Detective West.” Crystal gave him a polite nod. “Cisco.”

“Hi, Crystal,” Cisco said. “We heard you called in a meta.”

“One, maybe two. They were new. Or I’d never seen them before.”

She described them; the metahuman who’d spun like a top and the wave of dizziness she assumed came from the other one’s weapon. Joe recorded everything while Cisco took notes, until he decided to go and look at the damaged police cruisers, leaving Crystal alone with Joe to finish her statement. The injured officers were loaded into ambulances, both stabilised before their drive to St Andrew’s.

When they were done, she wasn’t sure whether she should drive before someone confirmed the vertigo had gone for good. Then she found out the spinning meta’s attack had shattered her windshield and blown out two of her tires. She eventually managed to catch a ride back to the station and got to work on her incident report while it was still fresh in her mind. She had to do it twice, once for the robbery and once for the metahuman encounter. The excitement and subsequent paperwork stopped her mind from drifting back to her conversation with Iris. But it wouldn’t leave her alone, and once she’d finished there was nothing to do but sit back and look at Barry’s casefile, knowing there was an angle that her investigation had edged around but never properly addressed.

She had to wait twenty minutes before Captain Singh would see her, and that gave her enough time to formulate a strategy.

“Is this about the bank?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No, captain. It’s about… the Allen case.”

Singh straightened in his chair. “What about it?”

“Captain, I know I haven’t made as much progress in this investigation as you hoped, and if you want to assign the case to someone else, I completely understand.”

Singh held up his hand. “I’ve read all your reports, detective. If I had a problem with anything you’ve done, you’d know about it. Now what do you need?”

“Captain…” Crystal said carefully, “at this point I think that Barry Allen was either shot randomly, which is very unlikely, or he was shot because… of his association with the Flash. I’d like your permission to investigate that.”

“Crystal, you know how dangerous that is, don’t you?” Singh said. “You know the kinds of people the Flash has dealt with. You know what they’re capable of.”

Crystal nodded. “I do, captain.”

Singh leaned over his desk. “Good. Because I don’t care who they are or what they can do. If you want to drag every metahuman and every costumed weirdo from this city and any other into an interview room, then you do it. Whatever it takes. I will back you all the way.”

“Yes, captain. Thank you.”

She stood, dismissed, but before she reached the door, he called after her, “Was he at the bank today? The Flash?”

Crystal froze. She tried to keep her reply as casual as she thought it should be. “No, captain. Nobody saw him.”

Singh nodded, as if that was the answer he’d been expecting, and she left him and went back to her desk. On the way, she passed Cisco rattling towards the elevators with a trolley supporting half a dozen plastic jars of ball bearings.

“Cisco,” she called.

He stopped, looked around and smiled awkwardly. “Sorry. These things make a lot of noise.”

“That’s okay. I was actually wondering about the weapon the other perp used. Do you think it could have any long-term effects?”

Cisco ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. We asked the hospital to put those two cops into an MRI but we won’t get the results until tomorrow. Joe’s trying to get an… orto…laryng… ologyst consult but I don’t know how long that’s going to take.”

“Are you sure?” Crystal pressed. “Because I don’t know how comfortable I feel driving… even if I still had a car.”

“That’s the best I can do,” Cisco responded. He let out a hollow laugh. “It’s not like I can ask Caitlin anymore is it?” He flinched a little. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Crystal said. “I’ll get a cab or something. Have you heard…?”

“No.” Cisco fixed his eyes on the ball bearings. “Just don’t ask, alright? I have to go. We’ll call you when we hear from the ear doctor.”

Without another word, he turned his back on her and pushed the trolley away down the hall. Crystal went back to her desk and did the only thing she could think to do: reopen Barry Allen’s casefile. 


	3. Cocytus

Caitlin pulled the jacket tightly around her. It was a warm night, and she wouldn’t have been cold anyway. She didn’t know if she could get cold anymore.

The bar lay at the far end of the warehouse district, on the opposite side of the city to the ones Caitlin usually visited. She’d lived in Central City a long time, and she’d never had cause to come to this part. All she knew was that around here, the further you went from the river, the rougher things got.

So she kept her head down and walked in precise, measured steps. Not too fast and not too slow. Like she was back in the labs and not in a narrow alley literally on the wrong side of the tracks where the rubbish had been allowed to pile up and the stale smell of old beer and cigarettes hung in the air. She knew she could defend herself, but she knew how she’d have to do it, and that was little comfort to her.

The bar itself was down a short flight of steps. The interior was as dim as she’d expected, but someone had taken some care over it. The wood was varnished, the seats were clean and the leather on the stools was only a little cracked. There was even a new-ish pool table and the hints of a day-time food menu.

She ordered a beer almost at random – Ronnie’s favourite – and was grateful the barman handed it over without a fuss. Two of the booths were still free, so she settled into the one nearest the exit and sat with her back to the wall. She didn’t like feeling closed in, but she didn’t want to sit where she couldn’t see the door.

Ten minutes passed. The bar was warm, so she shrugged off her coat to avoid attracting attention and laid it over her bag. Then she made a slight gesture to the suit controls on her sleeve, pulling in a little more heat from the surrounding environment, storing it in the capacitors in case she needed it later. She didn’t want to pull too much; the drop in air temperature might be noticed.

The door opened and three more men came in. They were laughing loudly, and kept trading comments as they ordered their drinks and walked past her. When one of them met her eyes as he did so, she returned a well-practiced look of disinterest, and he kept on going.

Another five minutes, and she’d finished the beer. More customers had come in. None of them paid any attention to her, and it was starting to make her suspicious. She wondered what would happen if she went to get another drink.

Then Leonard Snart walked through the door. He wasn’t wearing the regalia of Captain Cold, but everyone seemed to recognise him anyway. The barman greeted him by name, handed him a beer and gestured to Caitlin’s booth. Suddenly the lack of interest made sense.

Snart paused to greet one of the laughing drinkers and then sat down on the other side of the booth. He smiled. Caitlin didn’t.

“Hello, Doctor Snow,” he said. “How do you like Theo’s?”

“Did you tell them I was coming?” Caitlin asked.

Snart shrugged. “I told them I was meeting someone here tonight. A friend of Lisa’s from out of town, and that my sister would be… unhappy if you were bothered.”

“Do you expect a thank you?”

More amusement crept into the smile. “I know you can look after yourself, but I wanted to avoid any trouble. For Theo’s sake.”

“Then thank you,” Caitlin said.

Snart took a sip of his beer and leant back in his seat, watching her. Caitlin knew she could make herself very hard to read, but she also knew that she was sitting opposite a master of finding the cracks in people. And she had a very large and obvious crack that she didn’t even know how to hide.

“So, Doctor Snow,” Snart said, “why do you want to be a Rogue?”

Caitlin flinched. “That’s not why I’m here.”

“It isn’t? Lisa will be so disappointed. She keeps telling me how annoying it is to be surrounded by boys all the time.”

“I need your help, Snart,” Caitlin said, forcing herself to stay calm. “That’s all.”

“Why would I help you?” Snart asked, seeming almost curious under the arrogance.

“Because you owe us. For Lisa.”

She saw him flinch. The pain in his eyes was there for a second and then it was smothered. “That’s not very heroic of you,” he said, covering it with a joke, and when she didn’t react, went on, “So what can I do for you, Doctor Snow?”

Caitlin shook her head. “Not here.”

Snart nodded. He rose without another word and Caitlin pulled on her coat and followed him. It took them a few minutes to get to the door as Snart spoke to almost everyone they passed, but finally they made it out into the night. Snart kept in step with her as they left the alley and then gestured to the right. She wasn’t willing to turn her back on him, and he seemed to share the concern, so they stayed silently side by side until they reached a station wagon whose most distinctive feature was its particularly ugly green paintjob.  

Caitlin hesitated by car door until Snart dug the keys out of his jeans and threw them to her. “You drive, doctor.”

“Is this stolen?”

“Borrowed.”

She wondered if he saw a difference. Either way, she had little choice but to adjust her sleeve again, open the creaking door and wrestle the column shift into Drive. Snart slouched in the passenger seat as the car shuddered away from the curb. It pre-dated standard power-steering by a long way and was less co-operative than the lab van. She got it out into one of the wider avenues and then followed Snart’s casual instructions, turning left, right, right, right, left, left, right almost at random. She worked out fairly quickly that this was Snart’s way of checking if they were being followed, because once he was satisfied that no one was trying to mimic the car’s erratic changes of direction, he started giving more sensible and measured directions that took them back across the railway tracks and towards the river. He finally told her to pull into a side street behind a boarded-up building that had a gap over the door where a sign had once hung.

Snart watched her examine the building and then unlocked a set of heavy double doors and walked inside. She kept her head up and tried not to hesitate as she followed. Through the door was a small ramp that led down to a wide open room, all lined with wood and with the remains of brass railings around the edge. The presence of a long, red-topped bar against the opposite wall made her realise the Rogues had set up their current home base in an abandoned nightclub, a thought confirmed by the dozen or so places where disused wiring protruded from the walls; empty lighting fixtures, she suspected.

Then the door in the corner slammed open and a heavy-set man in overalls pointed a familiar gun at them. Caitlin tried to keep her face empty. Snart didn’t even flinch.

“At ease, Mick, it’s me. You remember Doctor Snow?”

Caitlin was fairly certain the last time she’d been in a room with Mick Rory, he’d threatened her with immolation and then tied her to a chair above a bomb. She wasn’t certain what to make of the fact that he appeared to be having trouble remembering who she was.

“The Flash’s doctor,” he said eventually.

“Something like that,” Snart replied. “This way.”

They walked up the stairs into the club’s private lounge, a narrow, rectangular room with empty curtain hangers on the ceiling. Snart seemed to have converted the single, long table into an office space. Caitlin took a seat on one of the benches and Snart sat opposite her. Rory settled at the far end, between them and the exit. Caitlin fought down her nerves. Snart could control Rory. Whether he would or not was another question.

“First things first,” Snart said, either not noticing or ignoring her discomfort. He dropped a newspaper on the table. Caitlin saw Iris’ byline and flinched. She’d heard the story about the double-act bank robbery already.

“He didn’t come today,” Snart went on, almost conversationally. “The Flash hasn’t been seen for a month. He’s not coming back, is he?”

Caitlin leaned over the table, met Snart’s eyes and held them. “Barry’s dead.”

Snart kept watching her as she straightened up. She didn’t look away. She had no idea if the instant of regret she saw was real or not.

“Shame,” he said quietly, then shrugged. “Now we’re alone, tell me what you want, Doctor Snow.”

She didn’t want to talk about Barry any more than he did, so she answered, “I want to leave Central City. For good.”

“We have a freeway, a station, and an airport,” Snart responded. “What’s stopping you?”

Caitlin took a breath. “My… condition. This suit keeps me from falling to a hypothermic coma. Before I go, I need to make sure it’s stable and that I can control it without support.”

Snart smiled. “So go ask Cisco. It’s what I’d do.”

She considered her options and told him, “I can’t.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“ _Why_?”

She fought her voice level. “I am not telling you.”

“Then I hope you have a nice evening.” Snart sat back and gestured at the door.

There was a faint sound behind her. Rory striking a match. He let the slow hiss fill the room and then said, “Why don’t you let me ask her, Len? Fire is always honest.”

Caitlin didn’t even have to turn her head. There was a rush of chilly wind and the match went out.

Snart looked a little less relaxed. “Interesting,” he muttered.

She heard another set of footsteps on the stairs; light, almost gliding, and knew what to expect before the theatrical sigh. “Boys, boys, boys. You have no idea how to talk to a lady.”

Lisa Snart strolled through the room and stood behind her brother. “Take Mick downstairs, Len. I’ll handle this.”

Snart got up, gave his sister an indecipherable look and then went out. Rory followed without a word. Lisa dropped onto the bench opposite Caitlin and swung her long legs under the table.

“Is this about Cisco?” she asked conspiratorially. “I mean, we both know he likes bad girls, but there have got to be easier ways of getting his attention, especially since you can do the… Elsa thing now. I don’t want him… that much. You can have him if you like.”

Caitlin waited until she was finished. “This has nothing to do with Cisco,” she responded.

Lisa snorted. “Well, that’s a lie.” She looked thoughtfully across the table for a moment. “You know Len won’t help unless you tell him, don’t you? He has to know _everything_. Every single angle. It gets so boring. But he won’t give up. He has something you need, and he knows he has all the power.”

Caitlin still didn’t speak.

“If it’s not Cisco…” Lisa went on, “what about Barry? Poor Barry.”

“So he did tell you,” Caitlin muttered.

Lisa shook her head. “He didn’t have to. Nice, friendly Barry Allen, who wild horses couldn’t drag away from you and Cisco, but who’s never around when the Flash drops by. In another year, the whole city would have known it without Len having to say a word.”

“What do you want, Lisa?” Caitlin asked.

“To help you,” Lisa replied, all the humour suddenly gone from her face. “You helped me once. Come on, Caitlin. I showed you my scars, now you show me yours.”

Caitlin looked at her for another long moment, and then turned her head. “Snart! Snart!”

Snart re-appeared on the steps, and Caitlin looked back at Lisa. “You would have told him anyway.”

Caitlin closed her eyes, preparing herself. She pushed all her emotions as far down as she could, wishing she could really freeze herself solid as she told the story.

“Barry died… on my table. I’d treated him when he’d been hurt before, so I thought I could repair the damage. Because if we called an ambulance and he was taken to a hospital then everyone would find out. I was wrong, and he died. No one said ‘it’s not your fault’, because it was. I’m a bioengineer not an emergency physician. I shouldn’t be treating gunshot wounds.” She wanted to stop there but forced herself to finish. “Cisco couldn’t look at me afterwards. Iris said… if she ever saw me again, she’d have me arrested. Negligent homicide. I killed her best friend.”

The Snarts didn’t say anything. They just watched her, showing nothing. No understanding, no pity. That was good. She couldn’t stand the idea of being pitied by them.

“That is why I have to leave the city,” she said finally. “That’s why I need your help.”

“How do we fit in to your great escape plan?” Snart asked.

“You help me steal a neural interface from Palmer Technologies.”

Lisa let out a shriek of laughter. “Oh, Katie, I’m so proud of you. I always knew you had a dark side.”

Snart just nodded. “How do we do that, Doctor Snow? If your friends from Starling were going to let you walk in, you wouldn’t need us.”

Caitlin calmly pulled the tablet computer out of her bag and laid it on the table. A few swishes brought up the schematics of a building.

“We don’t need to go to Starling,” she told them. “This is the Palmer Tech building in the Williams Drive science park. It’s right on the edge of town. Police response time if there’s an alarm is eight-point-five minutes minimum.”

Lisa glanced at her brother, who gave her a silent nod in return.

“How do we get in?” Snart asked.

“There’s a freight elevator at the back of the building, here. I know a code that can make it run without showing on the security monitors. It’s in case any of the ‘special projects’ department want to work without being monitored.”

“The down side to keeping secrets,” Snart remarked.

“The security office is on the third floor,” Caitlin went on. “There are two guards, but they don’t patrol unless there’s a problem. Two floors above are the automation substations for the security systems. If we short out the right one, the monitors for the top three floors will shut down. It will look like an electrical fire caused by something burning out. That kind of short won’t shut down the elevator if you have the override code. It will take the guards at least ten minutes investigate, repair and reboot the systems. We take the elevator up to the eleventh floor, open the door to the bioengineering labs and are gone in five.”

Snart traced the route she’d indicated on the plans. “How do you know all this?”

“I’ve been there. Twice. And STAR Labs still has a connection to the Palmer Tech databases. That filled in the rest.”

Snart nodded. “You’ll be coming in with us?”

“Of course,” Caitlin responded. “Do any of you know what a nanowire neural interface looks like?”

“I hate to sound venal, Len,” Lisa said. “But other than the challenge, which you’re obviously loving, what’s in it for us?”

“You read my mind, Lisa,” Snart replied. He turned back to Caitlin. “Well?”

“The head of bioengineering has their office on their floor below,” Caitlin replied. “In that office is part of the company’s art holdings. An early eighteenth century copy of Thomas Willis’ _Cerebri Anatome_ , worth at least ten thousand dollars.”

Snart nodded slowly. “Alright. I’m… interested. But just so we have informed consent, you know what will happen to you if you aren’t being honest?”

Caitlin didn’t look away. “I know.”

“Good.”

He swept up the tablet without a word and left the room. Lisa shuffled over.

“I have a question, Katie: if this goes even slightly wrong, even if it’s not your fault, how are you going to start your new life when you’re a wanted woman?”

Caitlin didn’t answer. Lisa gave another theatrical sigh. “You didn’t think of that, did you? You know, I always wanted a little sister of my own. Don’t worry Katie, as long as you don’t upset Len too much, I’ll look after you.”

“I’m an only child,” Caitlin growled.

“God, you’re hard to talk to. How does Cisco do it?” She tailed off for a moment, thinking. “What does he call you, anyway?”

“Call me?”

“Now that you have… powers. You’ll need a proper Cisco-patented name if you want to be a Rogue. Captain Cold, Heatwave, Golden Glider and…”

And there was a name, but it wasn’t one that Cisco used. Nobody did. It belonged to another Caitlin Snow, somewhere out there in the multiverse. A cold, dangerous criminal, willing to do whatever it took to survive, no matter who got in her way. Perhaps they had more in common than she’d thought.

“I’m Killer Frost,” Caitlin said. 


	4. The Pallid Bust of Pallas

Cisco didn’t remember police work being so boring. Tests took hours, the equipment ran at a snail’s pace, and if you wanted any sort of consultation, it took days to arrange. It wasn’t just the big, gaping hole where Barry should have been, it was everything else too.

The room assigned to the technical consultants of the CCPD Metahuman Division was in a converted basement. It was dull, grey and too quiet. STAR Labs had never been this quiet, not even in the limbo after the explosion. Sound actually carried pretty well; the pinging of the equipment monitoring Barry, the click of Caitlin’s heels on the metal floors, the hum of Wells’ wheelchair. If Cisco closed his eyes, he could still hear them.

He tried really hard not to.

It wasn’t like he could go back to there anymore. When the Metahuman Division had started, it was Crystal, Joe and their support officers, and Barry on the forensics with Cisco and Caitlin backing him up. Captain Singh had given them a surprising amount of leeway with where and how they worked. Now it was just him and Joe, and Singh’s insistence that as much of the work as possible be conducted in proper police facilities. This meant the dim, low room that was at once too cramped and far, far too empty.

He heard Joe’s footsteps in the corridor and looked up from the simulation his computer was very slowly running. Even Joe didn’t come down if he didn’t have to.

“What have you got for me, Cisco?”

Cisco held up a sphere of chrome steel. “This is a five-eighths ball bearing, the most powerful ball bearing in the world. It’ll blow your head clean off.”

Joe just took the little sphere and held it between his thumb and forefinger. “Ball bearings?”

“Yeah. About a hundred of them. We pulled them out of the cars, the trees, even Officer Lin’s leg and Roberts’ vest.”

“The meta threw these?”

“Centrifugal force, like a thousand little hammer throws.” Cisco indicated the computer. “From the force of impact, the balls were probably going at about two hundred and fifty feet per second. That’s nearly a quarter the speed of a bullet. So the Top must have been spinning at about three thousand seven hundred and fifty RPM.”

“The Top?” Joe repeated.

“Like a spinning top,” Cisco told him. “Like Crystal said.”

“Just don’t put that in the case file,” Joe said.

Cisco sighed. “I’m sorry Joe, he could have gotten these from any hardware store in the city. Or any city. I don’t know how we can use this to trace him.”

Joe looked past him at the stack of ball bearing boxes against the wall and raised his eyebrows. Cisco’s testing had been more thorough than it needed to be. He wanted to be sure, and he a lot of free time on his hands now.

“Maybe,” Joe said thoughtfully. “A metahuman with that kind of power and the first time we see him, he’s robbing a bank using ball bearings as a weapon.”

“What are you thinking?” Cisco asked, wishing he could see the connection.

“I don’t know,” Joe replied. “Something’s not right about this, that’s all...” He stared at the wall for a moment, then shrugged. “What about the other one? The partner with the weird gun?”

Cisco nodded. “Yeah. That’s what I asked you to come down for. I had to call in some help, I hope you don’t mind.”

“Who did you call?”

There was a tap on the door and it opened before either of them could respond. The man who came in made Cisco think of his high school chem teacher. He was in his fifties, dressed smartly but slightly behind the times style-wise, as if he only kept himself organised because someone else told him to. He had a police identification hanging around his neck, turned inwards so that Cisco had to make the introduction.

“Joe, this is the _other_ Doctor McGee.”

Jerry McGee turned his badge around and held out his hand. “From the Coroner’s Office. I’ve heard my wife mention you, Detective West.”

“I… didn’t know she was married,” Joe admitted.

“She keeps her personal and profession life separate,” McGee explained. “She always has. We’re busy and only getting busier.”

“Thanks so much for helping out,” Cisco told him. “Seriously, Joe, I had such a hard time finding a consultant.”

McGee shrugged. “Anything for Central’s finest. But I thought you had a medical advisor. Doctor… Snow?”

Cisco looked away. Eventually Joe said, “She left town.”

“Well, good luck finding a replacement,” McGee said casually, and Cisco ground his teeth to keep his mouth shut, but fortunately the other man was looking at Joe. “I’ll show you what I found. Can I use your computer?”

Grateful for something to do, Cisco took the offered pen drive and plugged it into his machine. There followed the inevitable three minutes of wrangling before the CCPD security system was persuaded to accept it and let them access the contents. They’d never had these problems at STAR Labs.

McGee fumbled a pair of glasses out of his shirt pocket and slipped them on. “Detective West, Cisco sent me the MRI scans taken of some of the officers affected during the metahuman robbery. It’s been a long time since I worked with scans of a living brain, but I did find something.” He made a few clicks and a composite model of Crystal Frost’s brain appeared on the screen. “First, to repeat the good news, no sign of any lesions, swelling, bruising or anything that might indicate a long term effect from… what were they affected by, exactly?”

“We’re not sure,” Joe answered. “Some sort of weapon.”

McGee made an indistinct noise and clicked again. “Here is Detective Frost’s cerebellum. As you can see, it’s completely normal.”

“I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear that,” Joe remarked. “But what made her so dizzy?”

Another slide came up. It wasn’t any part of the brain that Cisco recognised. Instead, it looked like a piece of biological plumbing: three tubes curving past each other, and a sort of reservoir sack connecting them.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“These are the semi-circular canals of Detective Frost’s inner ear, where balance is regulated. Certain infections can cause swelling in the canals, causing prolonged periods of dizziness or vertigo. Labyrinthitis. I noticed a little swelling here and here.” He tapped two unremarkable patches of the scan. “I think this weapon disrupts balance by affecting this part of the ear, possibly by disturbing the endolymph fluid in the canals.”

“And how would someone do that?”

“No idea,” McGee replied, blinking up at Joe.

“Cisco?”

“I guess,” Cisco said, looking down at the computer, hoping this was one of those times he could apply mechanical principles to a biological system. “I’d have to read up on what’s in that part of the ear and how it all works, but I could probably figure out how it’s done.”

McGee smiled. “Well, Cisco, please call my office if you have any questions. I’ll make sure my secretary knows to pass on your messages as urgent. Is that all? I’m afraid I’ve got a conference to prepare for.”

“No, that’s okay,” Cisco said. “I’ve got your number. Let me just make a copy of those MRI scans. You want to ask anything else, Joe?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, great.” Cisco finished the copying, pulled the thumb drive out and handed it over. “Again, thanks so much for coming down.”

McGee took the drive from him, gave them each a cheerful nod and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. Cisco listened to his footsteps fading away down the corridor and dropped into the vacated chair, staring at the almost-incomprehensible scans.

“Cisco?” Joe said gently.

He looked up. He’d almost forgotten Joe was there.

“How long will you need to figure out how the weapon works?” Joe asked.

“A couple of days,” Cisco told him. “Probably. Maybe. If Doctor McGee returns my calls.”

Joe sighed. “I’ll tell the captain we need a new permanent medical consultant as soon as possible.”

“Thanks,” Cisco said flatly. Then he said, barely loud enough to be heard, “I miss her, Joe.”

“Cisco…”

The three hard raps on the door made him jump. Joe put his hands on his hips. “What?”

A very junior detective that Cisco didn’t recognise stuck his head through the door. He looked around the room in confusion, probably wondering how many of the stories they told about the division were true. It took him a few seconds to focus on Joe.

“Sorry, Detective West. The captain wants you to head up to the Palmer Tech building. They’ve had a break-in.”

“Sure,” Joe said. “Tell him I’m on my way. Grab your stuff, Cisco.”

Cisco indicated the computer scans. “It’s okay, Joe. I’ve got a lot of reading to do.”

Joe shook his head. “That can wait. If they need me then they need you. Come on.”

* * *

Cisco had to admit it was nice to put on his shades and enjoy the summer day outside. Williams Drive was out past the suburbs, barely part of the city anymore. It was a long, peaceful drive watching the buildings slowly being replaced by trees and feel the sun on his face. He struggled to remember the last time he’d been out this far.

The development past Cabot Park hadn’t been planned as a science park, but after Mercury Labs had opened a small facility there, a few other companies had followed suit, and Palmer Technologies was one of them. Cisco had joked with Felicity whether it was just to make industrial espionage easier for everyone. That seemed a very long time ago now.

A small cluster of police vehicles was waiting for them outside the twelve-storey building. The CSIs were already there with their van. Cisco got a wave from one of them as he went past.

“Do you know what they do here?” Joe asked.

Cisco struggled to remember. He’d heard conversations about the facility, but something else always seemed to be going on when there was a chance to visit. “Umm… medical technologies, I think. Like... artificial limbs, maybe?”

Officer DuBois jogged slowly out of the entrance hall. Joe repeated the question to him.

“Applied biomedical research,” DuBois answered from his notes. “Wearable technologies to assist or replace parts of the body damaged by accident or disease. Early stages, though. No robotic arms yet.”

Cisco smiled at the joke. Joe didn’t look certain that there was one. “Why did you call me?” he asked.

“We think it was hit by Captain… sorry… by Leonard Snart. Probably his crew too.”

Joe looked at Cisco. “You’re sure?”

“As we can be, detective. There’s a door on the eleventh floor that’s been frozen and smashed open. Building security say there was still ice there when they found it.”

“Show me,” Joe said.

 They took the elevator up to the eleventh floor. It wasn’t one of the working labs so much as a storage area for parts and projects. One wall was lined with heavy doors, each one carrying a keycard lock and an identification code. Past a line of crime scene tape was a door being examined by some of the CSIs. Joe and Cisco waited until they were finished with their sampling and then stepped up to examine the roughly-circular hole where the lock had been and the pile of metal shards on the floor.

Cisco didn’t need to run any tests. He barely needed a glance; he knew the pattern by sight.

“Yeah, this was Captain Cold.”

The door had been protecting a row of thick draws, each one also carefully labelled with a project number. One of these drawers was also being examined by the CSIs. 

“What did they take?” Joe asked.

DuBois looked at his notes again. “Something called a nanowire neural interface.”

That made Cisco look up. His memory kicked for attention.

Joe just looked blank. “And what is that?”

Cisco saved DuBois the trouble of deciphering the explanation he’d been given by the staff. “It’s like… if you want to build an artificial arm, then you’ve got to control it, right?” He waited for Joe to nod. “You’ve got to connect it to the nervous system so the patient can move it how they want to, just like could if it were a normal arm.” He made a few gestures to demonstrate. “But that means you’ve got to implant electrodes into the nerves to pick up the signals from the brain, which is messy. So instead, what if you could build a system to detect the nerve impulses from outside? Through the skin? That’s what the interface does. Of course, they’re nowhere near Robocop levels of control yet, but they’ve got it advanced enough you can play a hands-free game of _Tetris_. Just as an example.”

Joe and DuBois looked at each other and then back at Cisco.

“Felicity let us test it out,” Cisco explained. “You put the interface on and plug it into the interpreter for the game. Then you think _left_ if you want the blocks to move left. Or right, or down, or rotate clockwise or whatever. You’ve got to concentrate really hard, though. Barry –”

A wall rose up inside him, bringing the sentence to a sudden halt. He bit down on the words, forcing himself not to say or even think about what came next. Instead, he looked down at the floor and took a deep breath. “Yeah, anyway, that’s what it does.”

“That doesn’t sound like something Snart would steal,” Joe said quickly.

“It’s not the only thing he took,” DuBois explained.

He led them down the stairs to the big empty office of the department head. It looked as if it had been designed to wow visitors more than provide somewhere to work. The desk was far too large to do anything but collect clutter, and there was a huge window behind it, but not much of a view.

One of the things that had probably been included to show off was the metal and plastic display case level with where a visitor would sit. It had also been broken open, and a CSI photographer was documenting the results.

“An early medical text book,” DuBois told them. “Rare and pretty valuable. We’ve asked for an estimate.”

“That’s more like it,” Joe muttered.

Cisco stopped paying attention to them. Something about the display case caught his eye. He leaned over, looking at the cabinet’s two locks, and the way they’d broken.

“Joe!” he hissed.

Joe joined him. “What?”

“I don’t think the Cold Gun did this. I mean, the bolts holding it shut were definitely chilled enough to break, but they didn’t shatter like the one upstairs. And those old books are really fragile. You couldn’t freeze the cabinet without seriously damaging anything inside.”

“Are you sure?”

Cisco nodded slowly. “I built the thing, didn’t I?”

Joe gave him a cautious look and then straightened up. “How did they get in?”

 “The freight elevator,” Dubois said. “We don’t know how they accessed it, but they burned out the security system for these floors with a simulated electrical fire and then came up while the guards were investigating. Because of the system failure, nothing showed up on the alarms or the cameras.” Dubois smiled. “But I guess they didn’t know about the backup cameras.”

“Backup cameras?”

Dubois nodded. “Yeah. They kick in if the main system fails. They don’t have a live feed, they just record. We’re accessing drives now.” 

Joe spent the next ten minutes taking names and details, leaving Cisco little to do but worry. A suspicion had formed in the back of his mind and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make it go away.

Finally, an officer arrived with the recordings on a laptop. “Lab first, then here,” Joe requested.

They gathered around the laptop and watched the screen. It was a wide-angle shot of the upstairs lab, dimly lit under emergency lighting. The camera had come on only when the security system had shut down from the burn-out.

Then a familiar figure stepped into sight from what looked like the direction of the freight elevator. Blue parka with the hood pulled up. Unmistakable. Half the kids in town had his action figure.

“Snart,” Joe muttered.

Then Cisco’s breath caught as Lisa Snart joined her brother on the screen. She moved across the room with a dancer’s grace, swinging the Gold Gun in careful arcs. His heartbeat got louder and he fought to ignore it.

But he completely forgot about Lisa as someone else came into view. It wasn’t, as they’d all been expecting, Mick Rory. It was another woman, wearing a short, blue-grey dress and smart pants. Long blonde hair hid her face. She took a series of precise, measured steps past the storage banks and then indicated one of them.

“Do you know who that is?” DuBois asked.

“No,” Joe said slowly. “She’s new.”

Snart joined the blonde while Lisa kept watch. The flash from the Cold Gun blinded the camera to that part of the room and by the time the image cleared, they had almost finished loading the stolen interface into a bag. Then they headed for the stairs.

“Next floor,” Joe said. “This office.”

The footage came up from the room they were in, and it took the tech a moment to find the right place on the recording, skipping the part showing the empty room while the Rogues had gone to work upstairs. Snart came in first again, sweeping the room. The blonde was behind him and they both headed for the display case. Lisa went to the window and peered out of it, probably keeping watch for any flashing lights.

The blonde woman walked up the case and looked into it. Snart stood behind her. Then the woman raised her hands and held her palms a few inches from the case’s surface. Seconds passed and Cisco thought he saw something shift on the screen, but the resolution was too low to be sure.

Then she stepped back. Snart hit the case’s lid once, then again, then opened it. He carefully removed the book and put it into another bag. He said something to the blonde, and she looked up to answer him.

Cisco’s insides froze. Deep down, he’d already known. He’d recognised the outfit. He’d recognised the walk. He’d even recognised the blonde wig. And now he could see her face and all he could ask himself was where she’d gotten the contact lenses to turn her eyes from brown to pale blue.

Not that the answer mattered. Not that any of it mattered. They’d all seen her. And who she was with. And what she’d done.  

Caitlin Snow was a Rogue.  


	5. REMF

Iris had always been welcome at the precinct. Being Joe West’s daughter afforded her a certain standing among the officers and staff. Eventually, she’d had realised it was a compliment paid to her father as much as to her.

If anything, things had gotten even easier in the last few years. Sympathy for her during Barry’s coma, and then her relationship with Eddie and the fallout from that. But she’d been glad when they’d stopped looking at her as a cop’s widow and she’d become ‘the Flash girl’. She’d expected more resentment for that. Cops traditionally didn’t get along with reporters, but they seemed willing to make an exception. Maybe because of who she was, maybe because everybody liked the Flash and seemed genuinely grateful to have him around. When she wrote up the Flash’s exploits, she was always scrupulously fair to the police who’d cleared up the mess and made the arrests afterwards. Her editor had asked her once why she took the focus away from the hero of the hour, and she’d told him that the people of Central City needed to believe they had competent law enforcement and weren’t relying on a single masked man to keep them safe. They hadn’t had that conversation again, and two days later a very confused Barry had brought home a huge bouquet that had been left in his lab for her.

That confidence was more important now than ever. It had been over a month since the last confirmed sighting. She did her best to spread rumours that he had appeared in other cities or was on some sort of top secret mission, but everyone was asking the same question; her editor, her colleagues, even cops. Where was the Flash?

She couldn’t tell them the truth. She didn’t know how. But she hated the thought that all of Barry’s hard work and bravery would end with Central City thinking the Flash had abandoned it.

The questions had started all over again after the latest bank robbery. New metahumans on the streets, officers at the scene having brain scans, two of them nearly killed, and no sign of the Scarlet Speedster. And she had just finished working through the mire of that story when she got a tip that Captain Cold was back.

She had no choice. She put on her best summer outfit – smart but not too serious – arranged her hair, practiced her smile in the mirror and drove up to Williams Drive to interview the Palmer Tech staff. She got herself all the way to the office of the department head who couldn’t stop talking about what an outrage it was that such a valuable book was now in the hands of a common thief. After she left, she tried a few personal numbers in Star City, just in case, but Felicity didn’t answer.

Then it was back to the precinct for part two. She knew they’d given her dad the case, and she also knew he’d tell her no more and no less than he’d tell any other reporter. But other reporters would have to wait for the official statement, she could go straight in past the awkward looks of cops who wondered whether or not they were supposed to stop her.

There was nobody in the office. Iris took a file out of her bag and idly flicked through it while she waited. The desk itself was almost bare and very well organised. That told her he might be a while. The department was very clear on leaving sensitive paperwork out where anyone might read it.

She decided she’d wait fifteen minutes. If her dad was in the building, that would be enough time for word to reach him. She passed the time making notes on the structure of her story based on what she’d heard at Palmer Tech, allowing extra space to work in a police statement.  

Then the door opened. But wasn’t her dad. It was Cisco.

He saw her from the doorway, froze, and then turned around. Iris dropped her files on the table and headed after him.

“Cisco!”

Cisco shook his head. “I’m not supposed to talk to the press. Joe was really clear about that.”

“Can you confirm the Rogues have a new member?” she called after him.

That stopped him, like she knew it would. He turned around, trying so hard to keep the emotion from his face and failing all the more for it. Iris pulled up her own professional mask, keenly aware that they were doing this under the eyes of half a dozen detectives.

“The Palmer Tech robbery,” Iris said quickly. “Two Snarts, probably Mick Rory, and another woman. My sources think she was a metahuman. They saw her freeze a cabinet open without touching it.”

Cisco just shook his head again.

“That’s not a denial,” Iris said. “We only know one person who can do that, and she’s doing it on tape. That recording will get to the news services, trust me.”

“Iris…” Cisco muttered. “Please…”

“This is the story,” Iris told him. “I’m writing it up. I have to. The only question is who I say she is.”

Cisco’s eyes went wide. “You can’t…”

“You saw the video,” Iris hissed. “We both know it’s her. But everyone else just thinks she’s a new Rogue. So when the story breaks, what do I call her? Caitlin Snow? Or Killer Frost?”

“Killer Frost,” Cisco whispered, dropping his head in defeat.

She turned around without another word, keeping her eyes ahead and not looking at the other cops. She went back into her dad’s office, grabbed her things and picked the file off the desk. Cisco was gone when she came out, and the detectives were doing their best to pretend they hadn’t seen anything.

* * *

She got back to her apartment and started working on the story. She was reaching the end of the first draft when her phone rang.

“Hi, daddy.”

“Iris. I heard you were at the station for the Palmer Tech break-in.”

“For the story, dad. I just wanted to know if the police are officially looking for Captain Cold.”

She heard him sigh over the line. “On the record?”

“On the record.”

Another sigh. “On the record, there is an APB out for Snart, his sister and Mick Rory.”

“What about the blonde woman with them?”

There were a few seconds of silence before Joe answered, “The blonde has not been identified, but we are investigating. There will be an official statement tomorrow.”

“Thanks, daddy.”

He hung up and she went back to work. Redraft, move the paragraphs around, change some of the wording, proof, check the lead paragraph, proof again and finally send to her editor. Only then did she open the file she’d picked up from her dad’s desk. Barry’s file.

Despite Captain Singh’s backing, it would have been a serious breach of process for Crystal to hand over the casefile for an open investigation to any private individual, especially to a journalist. So instead she’d simply left the file on Joe’s desk for Iris to pick up. In return, Crystal got Iris’ notes, a violation of journalistic ethics that put Iris on the same level as her unofficial partner.

Crystal’s investigation had been hampered from the start by the truth about Barry she couldn’t report. She’d let his closest friends spin whatever lies they wanted about his life and hadn’t pressed them for any more. Now Iris had to read through the investigation, trying to make the puzzle pieces fit the only picture she could think of: Barry had been shot to kill the Flash.

She read and read and read until her mind was fuzzy and her eyes ached. She made notes and went over those too, hoping somewhere to come across the single piece that would link everything else. It wasn’t like the Flash was short on enemies.

But every time, she came back to the same unanswerable question. Why Barry and not the Flash?

She was almost grateful to get an email back from her editor with some suggested changes. That gave her something else to think about while she made herself dinner. Once, she could have invited Barry over to sit, listen and offer suggestions between mouthfuls. The thought killed her appetite, but she made herself eat and go back to work. At least when she was typing she didn’t have to think about the dull ache in her chest.

Crystal called half an hour after she’d sent off the article’s final version. Iris realised she’d deliberately waited till the paper’s evening deadline had passed.

“I read your notes,” Crystal said. “They’re very good.”

“Thanks,” Iris said, wondering once more what would have happened if she’d stood up to her dad about the police academy.

“I think we should start by talking to General Eiling,” Crystal went on.

Iris sighed. “Crystal, if you’ve read my notes, you’ll know I called his office eight times. I called every office I could think of. Nothing.”

“I know,” Crystal replied. “But he’ll see us for an hour at ten tomorrow morning.”

“What? How?”

“Did I mention I’m an army brat? I know a few tricks. And it’s one of the advantages of being a cop. I told his office he could either talk to me, or I’d subpoena him and his whole department.”

“Could you do that?” Iris asked.

She felt Crystal’s smile. It had been such a long time since the woman had been this chirpy. Like the old days.

“I don’t know. But I was damn well going to find out. I don’t think he wanted to take the chance. So I’ll come over at eight and we’ll work out a strategy, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Try to get a good night’s sleep, Iris.”

* * *

Iris dreamed of Barry lying in the Pipeline with blood on his shirt. Of Eddie standing over him with a rifle. Leonard Snart carving an ice sculpture of the Flash and Mick Rory melting into a puddle. Then Caitlin walked up to her, touched her above the heart, and she felt so, so cold.

She sat up in bed, shivering. The dreams were normal, she’d been told. They were just her subconscious trying to deal with all the shit she’d been through.  

There was nothing to do but get up and make breakfast. She had the coffee ready for when Crystal arrived. Iris’ home-made coffee wasn’t up to Jitters standards, but she knew for a fact it was better than what cops drank.

She noticed Crystal giving her a few careful looks and then choosing not to say anything. Instead, they focussed on their strategy to deal with Eiling.

Crystal drove uptown. It seemed that Eiling had a permanent office rented as a sort of Central City outpost. That made sense. Eiling’s interest was soldiers with super-human abilities. It had started with telepathy and telekinesis research and then branched out into metahumans. After their initial skirmishes, he’d seemed content to keep out of the Flash’s way, but everyone at STAR Labs had been aware that the status quo wouldn’t last forever.

They were let inside by a woman a little older than Iris. She wasn’t in uniform but her posture screamed military. Eiling didn’t keep them waiting long. He was in uniform, full Army Service Class A ‘blue’ with every one of his badges and ribbons perfectly arranged. There was a large picture of President Regan on the wall behind him. Iris wasn’t surprised by that, but she was surprised by the family photo on his desk.

“Detective Frost. Ms West. Sit.”

They sat. Iris noted he didn’t offer them any refreshment. She wasn’t sure she’d have taken it if he had.

“We’d like to speak to you about the shooting of Barry Allen,” Crystal said.

“Of course you do,” Eiling said. He gestured at Iris. “By all means, take notes. We all know that nothing any of us says can go on any kind of record.”

Iris tapped a pen against her notepad and looked at Crystal. Most investigations – police or journalism – relied on subtly, but they didn’t have the time for that. Eiling could stonewall around subtly indefinitely (as Iris knew from trying to find out who he actually was and what part of the army he represented). The only way to deal with this man was on his terms: shock and awe.

Crystal took a little evidence bag out of her coat and put it on the table. Inside was eleven grams – less than half an ounce – of twisted steel and lead. Though not so deformed that its original shape wasn’t recognisable.

Eiling picked up the bag and looked thoughtfully inside it. “So this is it. The bullet that killed the Flash.”

Iris shivered. Crystal put another little bag on the table. It contained a replica of that same bullet in its cartridge. It was nearly three inches long, larger than an AA battery. It made Iris feel sick just looking at it.

“7.62x51 millimetre NATO cartridge,” Eiling said.

“Yes,” Crystal agreed.

She handed over printed-out picture of a long, plain rifle with scope, bipod and magazine. “Do you recognise that?”

“Not from memory.”

“It’s an M110 sniper rifle,” Crystal told him.

“System,” Eiling corrected. “Sniper system.”

Crystal ignored him. “That bullet, fired from one of those guns by someone on the fourth floor of the parking garage opposite STAR Labs. Around seven hundred yards.”

 Eiling nodded thoughtfully. “Long range so he wouldn’t hear the shot. STAR Labs is the only place he’d be with that sort of line of sight. Perhaps the precinct as well, but that would bring down every cop in Central City. You’d just have to hope he was walking in or out. Either that or cause some kind of emergency yourself and wait for him to show up, but there’s no guarantee he’d stand still for long enough in the right place.”

“It sounds like you’ve thought about it,” Iris whispered.

“Of course I have,” Eiling responded, like she’d offended his professionalism. “The Flash was a serious potential risk to national security. I had to have a plan for all contingencies. Including permanently removing him as a threat. After all, there is or was at least one more metahuman out there with those abilities. What works on Mr Allen should work on them too.”

Iris tried to imagine what it must be like in Eiling’s world. Considering everything a threat. Always making plans to counter them. Accepting any price as long as it led to ultimate victory.

Eiling looked calmly into her eyes. “The world needs people like me, Ms West,” he said. “To keep people like you safe.”

“General,” Crystal interrupted, “the gunman – or woman – needed military-level sharpshooter or sniper training. They used an army-issue weapon.”

“Those can be obtained outside normal channels, detective,” Eiling replied. “As can those with the skill to use them. I take it you’ve eliminated all other motives for killing Mr Allen? I’m not the only enemy the Flash had.”

“But you are one of the only ones who knew who he really was,” Iris said. “And they didn’t shoot the Flash. They shot Barry. But here’s the question we can’t answer: why would any of the Flash’s enemies kill him and then keep quiet about it?”

“The Flash dealt with thugs and bank robbers,” Crystal added. “None of them had the right training for this, and if they hired a professional we’d know. And they’d have told the whole city that the Flash was gone. But even the criminals are wondering where he is and when he’s coming back.”

Eiling was quiet for a moment. “There are other… candidates you may want to consider. Your friends in Star City. ARGUS. Amanda Waller’s Task Force X. Although I hear they no longer have a sharpshooter.”

“Why should we believe it wasn’t you?” Crystal asked.

Eiling sighed. “Because Mr Allen was… useful. We shared a common enemy. The metahumans in this city couldn’t be controlled, but he could keep them contained. Eliminating them myself would have cost valuable resources. And, if I needed them, I had other ways of removing him without necessarily killing him. He was a potential threat, but he was also a potential asset. Besides, I had no guarantee I could reproduce his abilities without a live subject.” 

“Why should we believe you?” Iris hissed.

“Because,” Eiling said, “if I wanted to kill the Flash, I would have sent a bigger rifle.”

Try as she might, Iris couldn’t keep the disgust from her face. Crystal’s was tellingly empty.

“Is that all, detective? Ms West?”

Crystal glanced at the clock, then at Iris. Their hour was up.

“Yes. Thank you for your time, general.”

“Goodbye, detective. Congratulate your brother on his promotion.”

Crystal’s expression barely flickered. “My brother?”

“Daniel Frost, Signal Corps. Promoted to Specialist two months ago. I can always use a good sat-com operator.”

“Thank you, general,” Crystal said. “I’ll pass that along. Come on, Iris.”

The young officer showed them out. Neither of them spoke until they were safely in the car and leaving the building behind.

“When my dad was in the army,” Crystal growled, “they had a name for guys like him. But I don’t think Joe would thank me for teaching it to you.”

“Rear Echelon –”

“That’s the one,” Crystal said brightly.

A few blocks passed before Iris asked, “What was all that stuff about your brother?”

Crystal shook her head. “That was just so I knew how clever he was.” She sighed. “But it wasn’t him.”

Iris sighed too. “No. If it was, he wouldn’t have been so helpful. He wanted to know what we knew.”

“He doesn’t know who did it. And now he knows we don’t either.”

“So where do we go from here?”

Crystal didn’t answer. They drove on in silence.


	6. Highway Robbery

Joe sipped a cup of coffee that probably qualified as industrial waste, and looked at his evidence board for the bank robbery. Even after a week’s work there was barely anything on it.

Two suspects. Male, going by the statements of the witnesses in the bank. No physical descriptions beyond approximate height and weight. No names.

Getaway vehicle stolen the day before from a delivery company with a dozen vans just like it. The escape had taken them through several of the blind spots in the traffic camera system and no patrol cars had wanted to approach for fear of being severely ventilated. Then, two days later, the van had been found abandoned in an underground parking lot on the opposite side of the city. Forensics were going over it, but they hadn’t turned up anything yet.

 That just left the weirder parts of the case. It was depressing how often they found out a member of the public had been affected by the particle accelerator only when they used their new abilities to break the law. Usually it was deliberate and some sort of petty crime; most didn’t have the ambition to think big. Joe didn’t know if that was better or worse than the ones whose powers emerged suddenly and unpredictably. He shivered at the memory of the seventeen-year-old girl who’d hit her boyfriend with a metal railing during one of those silly arguments teenage couples have; Barry had rushed the boy to hospital and the girl had just sat sobbing on the sidewalk while Joe carefully put a pair of plastic handcuffs on her.

That had been seven months ago, two years after the explosion. Joe knew that some people’s metahuman abilities could lie dormant for a long time until triggered by something. Caitlin had talked about doing detailed research into the causes of the powers and this latency, but helping the Flash kept her busy enough. And now she wasn’t around to ask.

This meant Joe had no idea if it was likely that the metahuman that Cisco had christened the Top had only recently discovered his bizarre ability or whether he’d been hiding it for longer. If the powers were recent, why use them to rob a bank and defend yourself in that specific way? If not, had he been testing or training himself beforehand? And if so, how had he been staying under the radar? Either way, Joe’s instinct told him they were looking for someone with a record.

But what about his partner? How had they met? Had they worked together before, with or without drawing special attention? Joe’s nationwide information request had turned up nothing of any similar MOs, but the robbery seemed too considered and planned for partners with no history of collaboration. Then there was the weapon. If Joe hadn’t known better, he would have been certain it was something else from STAR Labs’ cupboard of technological skeletons, but Cisco swore that he’d been through their entire R&D database and no one working there had been researching a gun that made you really dizzy. Cisco’s own connections were looking into alternatives there, but that was taking time.

Finally, there was the obvious question, the one that Joe had written on his board ten minutes ago and been staring at while his coffee went cold: where were these two going to strike next?

Cisco cautiously opened the door. He’d been uneasy visiting Joe’s office ever since he’d run into Iris. Joe could guess what they’d argued about, and the entire detective bureau knew that it hadn’t been pretty.

“Hey, Joe. Anything new?”

“No. You?”

Cisco shook his head. “Felicity’s trying, you know? But Palmer Tech won’t run itself. And she’s got to ‘officially’ deal with the Rogues’ robbery. Or someone there has.”

“No leads on Snart either,” Joe told him.

Cisco looked like he didn’t know whether to be pleased or upset. The kid’s involvement with the Snart crew had been complicated enough before they recruited ‘Killer Frost’. Joe didn’t blame him for trying not to think about it.

Instead, Cisco was focussing on the robbery evidence. It only took him a few minutes to read and process everything on the board.

“How do you know they’re going to do it again?” he asked.

“Because they got away with it,” Joe told him. “You don’t go to all that trouble to hit one bank and move to Mexico. Besides, they only got away with twenty thousand dollars.”

“Small change, I guess,” Cisco muttered, probably comparing them to Snart or Mardon. “So… another bank?”

Joe shrugged. “Maybe, but they’d have to be confident. Every bank in the city will be watching for them now, unless they want to do it without any planning.”

“Well… maybe they’re hiding out?”

“That’s not it either,” Joe said. “They should know we don’t have any way of tracing them.”

“What makes you think they’re so smart?” Cisco asked; a genuine question.

“Because the hard part of robbing a bank is getting away,” Joe replied. “They knew exactly how to do that. They knew the standard response and they knew how to get past us. It was all carefully planned.”

There it was again. Something about what he’d just said made him pause, but he couldn’t think exactly what it was. So he uncapped the pen and wrote _plan_ on the board.

“What about the plan?” Cisco asked, watching him carefully.

“I… don’t know.”

“Do you think they’re planning something new?” Cisco suggested. “Or… waiting for something?”

He saw Cisco’s eyes go wide. They’d both had the same idea. Central City had a lot of targets to strike before the police caught up, but maybe these new guys were waiting for something. Something they couldn’t hit at any time. A target with a specific window of opportunity.

Joe dropped behind his desk and went to work on the computer. Cisco stood behind him radiating unease and impatience. Joe ignored it. Cisco might be a faster typist than he was, but only one of them was a cop and knew how to navigate CCPD’s occasionally awkward but always reliable system.

“Here,” he said eventually. “Security companies kept on complaining about the number of armoured car robberies in Central City.”

“Well, it does kinda happen a lot,” Cisco remarked.

“So the captain told them to log all their jobs with us, and we’d have access to the routes on request. There. Two this week. A jewellery delivery tomorrow and a cash transfer two days after.”

“So what do we do?” Cisco asked.

“Stay here,” Joe told him. “I’ve got to go see the captain.”

Captain Singh took ten minutes out of his schedule to listen to Joe’s explanation. “Tomorrow?” he repeated. “Joe, there’s no way I can pull that kind of manpower on a hunch. Even the second one’s pushing it.”

“I know, captain,” Joe replied. “Just… give me what you can. I don’t think I’m wrong about this.”

Singh thought for a moment. “Find out the route. I’ll ask some of the traffic patrols to intersect and see about getting heavy support if you need it on Friday.”

“Thank you, captain.”

He headed back to his office, where Cisco had found the contact information for the two security companies. Joe rang them and went through the lengthy security process designed to make sure he wasn’t merely impersonating a CCPD officer and got the routes sent to his work email. Then he sent Cisco down to the motor pool to find an unmarked car they could use for the job.

“Just us?” Cisco asked when he came back with the keys to what he assured Joe was a Ford he’d verified with his own eyes.

“Officially,” Joe said.

Cisco just nodded. “There anything else you need?”

“No. Go home. Be here at ten tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

He left Joe looking at the map. Cisco had been right, the criminals of Central City had developed a special sub-class of modern highwayman. Joe put that knowledge into practice, plotting the route, thinking of the best places to intercept and bring it to a halt. How much did the cargo weigh? Could two men carry all of it? Would they risk taking the van or would they use their own vehicle? How would they escape?

Those questions kept him occupied evening and he was still running them over again in the morning when Cisco came up to the office.

“Are you sure about this, Joe?” he asked.

“I think they’re going to hit one of these.” Overnight, the suspicion had crystallised into certainty.

Cisco shook his head. “No, I mean about… me. Coming along. I’m not a cop, Joe.”

“No, you’re not, son,” Joe said. “And if you want to stay in the lab, that’s okay. But if you want to come, I could use you.”

Cisco looked at him for a moment, probably wondering if Han Solo ever felt this scared. “I’ll come, Joe,” he said eventually, then forced a smile. “And wait till you see what I put together for you.”

At Cisco’s insistence, they passed through the labs and collected an armful of electronic parts he’d assembled over the past few days. “This,” he explained as they went, “is a portable frequency monitor and energy sensor. I’m still working on something for the Top, but if his partner fires that gun at us, I guarantee you this will tell us what it does.”

It only took a few minutes to set up, most of it going under the passenger seat. When Cisco was done, Joe checked the shotgun in the trunk and pulled out a tactical vest.

“Put this on.”

Cisco stared at the vest for a few seconds and then pulled it over his head. Joe helped him fasten it up properly and then took care of his own.

“It’s… umm… a little tight,” Cisco remarked.

“Yeah. You get used to it.”

“I always imagined wearing one of these would feel a lot cooler. And a lot less scary.”

Joe looked at him over the roof of the car. “Cisco… everybody gets that. First time I had to wear one of those, I couldn’t stop my hands shaking. All I could think about was someone knocking on my mama’s door and telling her I wasn’t coming home.”

“So what did you do?” Cisco asked.

“There was a guy with me,” Joe explained. “Nick… Gatti. We’d been through the academy together. I thought about someone knocking on his mama’s door because I wasn’t there to back him up.” He smiled. “In the end, nothing happened. We went in fast and Sergeant Morrison had the guy on the ground before Nick and I made it into the same room.”

“Thanks, Joe,” Cisco said.

They got in the car. Cisco fidgeted in the seat next to him, but it looked like he was just trying to get comfortable in the vest.  Joe drove in silence, out of the city towards McKinley Airport. While stopped at a traffic light, he double checked with the security company that the van’s crew had the details of his car. He didn’t want them panicking over nothing.

It was a ten-minute wait at the edge of the interstate for the van. Joe figured nobody would be dumb enough to go for it right outside the airport. He parked up and kept his eyes on the road, watching the cars that went past with a cop’s practiced gaze, checking for anything out of the ordinary.

After a while, he became aware of a strange sound. It was just loud enough to be heard over the noise of the road. It filled the car, a low hum like someone had strummed a single out-of-tune guitar string and left the amplifier to feed back on itself.

“Cisco?”

The sound stopped. Cisco’s eyes, closed up to that point, snapped open. “Yeah?”

“Was that… you?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. Sorry. It’s just something I do, sometimes. It helps me focus, I guess.”

Joe sighed. He’d almost forgotten until now. “Cisco, I need you to promise me something. If something happens, don’t try to use your powers.” Cisco opened his mouth to protest but Joe cut him off. “ _Unless_ you absolutely have to. Okay? _Okay_?”

“Okay,” Cisco muttered.

Joe had half-expected him to act like a sulky teenager and protest. It was what his own kids would have done. But Cisco just went quiet. He didn’t say anything, even when the van lumbered past, weighed down by its cargo and armour. Eighty thousand dollars in diamonds cruising along the road.

Joe headed after them. Tail jobs were a lot easier when you didn’t have to worry about being spotted, but he tried not to make it too obvious to any outside observers. He hung back, varying the distance, always keeping at least two cars between him and the van, but never letting it pull more than fifty yards ahead.

Joe looked to the side. Cisco was still silent, but his fingers were twitching and a foot was tapping nervously against the car’s suspiciously clean floor.

“It’s not that I don’t think you can do it,” Joe told him. “But there’s a difference between doing it in the lab and out here for real when your life’s in danger. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“I just want to help,” Cisco said quietly. “Like Barry.”

They slipped into the city’s suburbs. Houses built for families of five and up with military-grade SUVs in the driveways and swimming pools out the back. Bad place for an ambush. Too much potential collateral damage. Too many identical drives to get lost in. Too many witnesses. But at this slow time of day it made it difficult to keep his distance from the van.

Cisco was still unnervingly quiet. Joe knew the look of someone doing too much thinking for their own good.

“You can help,” he said. He gestured at the radio on the dash. “If something happens, I’m going to be focussed on the van and the metas. You know our call sign, right?”

Cisco nodded. “Delta Whiskey Two.”

“Okay. Keep your eye on the street signs. Something happens, call it in for me. Call sign, street, and tell them ‘armed robbery, requesting backup’. Keep doing it till they tell you help’s on the way, then give them the details.”

“Call sign, street, armed robbery, requesting backup,” Cisco repeated. “Gotcha.” He managed a grin and hummed a few bars of the old _Dragnet_ theme.

They were leaving the suburbs behind them. The roads opened up. Joe kept his eyes on the van, knowing Cisco was tracking their location. They went through a sequence of underpasses. Joe watched the cars on the top and came as close as he dared in case something was hidden out of sight beyond the bridges. But there was nothing.

Then the traffic started to thicken. The van made a few sluggish turnings, taking roads regardless of how slow the route was. They passed the first high-rises. Joe’s eyes flickered from the cars to the sidewalks. It was the beginning of the lunch rush, workers taking half an hour to enjoy the hot sunshine before heading back inside. Nobody was paying any attention to the cars on the road, and no one was wearing anything too heavy for a summer day.

The traffic wasn’t moving at much above twenty. There were a lot of bottlenecks to trap the van, but no way to escape in a vehicle unless you wanted to ram your way out. The only alternative was running down the street with a bag full of jewels and every cop in the neighbourhood after you.

But Joe kept waiting, kept watching. He saw Cisco counting off the avenues. Eight blocks to go. Six. Five.

He hated the tension, hated alternating between wishing something would happen and wishing it wouldn’t. He sped up, only one car between him and the van, knowing that it was now or never. Two blocks, and the shops they passed had left his price-range far behind. Few actual customers, mostly people just dreaming of owning that suit or those shoes.

One block. Home plate. He pulled up next to another shop with the word _couture_ in the name and watched the van cross the last junction. It turned into a low, solid archway and stopped. The uniformed guy in the passenger side got out and exchanged IDs and passwords with the doorkeeper. Then a heavy metal gate slid upwards and the van disappeared down a ramp.

Cisco let out a slow breath. “So that’s what it looks like inside a scene break,” he muttered.

Joe shook his head, but smiled anyway. He was right. Starsky and Hutch got a fade to black and then an action sequence. Real cops got long, tedious hours with nothing to do but pray that it didn’t happen while they were on duty.

* * *

The next day, nothing happened. No robberies. Still no sign of the Rogues. Joe spent the day on paperwork and checking whether Captain Singh managed to find him any more substantial backup. But the city had too many problems and Joe didn’t have enough proof. Just a gut feeling that he was right, even though he’d been wrong yesterday so why not tomorrow too?

He headed home early. While the first security van had been missing the traffic by coming in late, this one was going out at dawn. But he slept quickly and easily with years of practice behind him. When he got to the station at half past five, Cisco didn’t look like he’d had quite such a good night. He also wasn’t enjoying his first experience of night-shift cop coffee.

“How do you drink this stuff, Joe?”

Joe shrugged. “After a couple of years, you just stop tasting it.”

Cisco looked at him for a moment and then threw the remains down his throat like a shot, trying to get it past his taste buds. Joe knew from experience that didn’t work either. All it produced was a coughing fit.

When he’d recovered, Cisco dug around in his pocket. “Here. I made us these.”

They looked like hearing aids. Cisco put one in his ear as a demonstration. “I figured that whatever this weapon is, it uses some sort of vibration. So if we block the entrance to the ear canal that might reduce the effects.”

Joe cautiously slipped one into one ear and then the other. For a moment, he could hardly hear anything. Then his ears popped and the sound came back. Everything sounded a little weird.

“The sound gets re-transmitted around the block,” Cisco explained, sounding like he was speaking through an old radio. “I’m still working on that.”

It was better than nothing, Joe supposed. He led the way to the car, hoping he’d stop noticing the change in noise quality and that it wasn’t blocking out anything important. It probably also explained what Cisco had been doing yesterday.  

They got in the same car and drove over Central Avenue towards the lake. Even the early starters hadn’t made it out of the door by the time they arrived at the Keystone Bank, one of the largest and most well-known institutions in the city. As a result, it had been robbed more than any other bank in the state.

The staff weren’t taking any chances. Joe and Cisco watch them load two hundred thousand dollars in cash into a van built like a tank. The guy in the passenger seat was literally riding shotgun, and the guard in the back with the money had an assault rifle.

The transfer only took a few minutes and then, at exactly six a.m., the van trundled through the security gates and out into the city. Joe followed, still doing his best to keep his distance. He glanced sideways at Cisco just as the kid yawned and gave his head a shake, then blinked heavily to focus his eyes on the passing street signs.

They made good progress through downtown, and then along Central Avenue. The van was faster than it looked, and Joe wondered if he would be able to hear the engine if he weren’t wearing earplugs. He thought he might be able to feel it, but that could just have been Cisco doing his vibration thing again.

Then they came off the avenue into what had been the manufacturing district, but now housed a lot of the modern industry that had built over the old factories. Two turns later and the van narrowly beat them past a set of lights, not slowing because it was probably harder to stop than an ocean liner. Joe took his foot off the gas, watching the van retreat down Westchester Avenue along the side of a construction yard.

He had just a second to glimpse the figure step out into the road in front of the armoured car and then explosive crash reached his ears through the plugs. The van veered to the side and that was enough for Joe. He slammed his foot onto the accelerator and threw the car over the junction. By the time he’d cleared it, the van was shuddering to a halt, leaning over on one side; something had blown out the tires.

Cisco managed to grab hold of the radio mic and shout a few words into it. Then Joe brought the car slewing around, coming to a stop twenty yards from the stalled van, just as the Top reached the back. The nameless partner fired his weird weapon into the van’s side. Joe and Cisco scrambled out of the car.

“Delta Whiskey Two, armoured car robbery, Westchester Avenue,” Cisco repeated into the radio like a mantra. “Requesting backup.”

He’d hunkered down behind the hood. Joe popped up over the roof, levelled his pistol at the pair and yelled, “Police! Freeze!”

The partner moved fast. Joe fired, knowing the bullet would miss, and then felt the world shudder around him. It lurched from one side to another. It was like being drunk, or on some serious painkillers. He fought it, managing to keep his feet, leaning on the car for support, trying to draw a line from his eyes to the gun to the target.

The robbers had turned their backs on him, taking for granted he was down and out. There was a scream of air as the Top transformed into human tornado. Like Crystal, Joe tried not to look, keeping his eyes on the other one and watching out of the corner of his eye. The vortex retreated a few feet and then rushed forward, slamming into the van’s doors. The metal wailed. The Top backed off, the noise of the air got louder and then he swept forward again.

This time, the doors didn’t hold. There was a shriek louder than the wind and they were ripped open. Joe had a split-second to see the rear guard stumbling through the gap and then he was flying through the air, turning over and over and landing with a heavy crack on the side of the road.

The world lurched again, but less heavily this time. “Cisco!” Joe hissed. “Can you move?”

Cisco pressed his palms against his eyes and straightened up. “I think so.”

“Get that guard out of the way,” Joe told him. “I’ll cover you.”

Cisco nodded and stumbled towards the downed man. Joe turned his attention back to the van. The Top was inside, ripping his way into the secured cash draws. His partner was turning and Joe wondered if there was any surprise on the hidden face as he fired again.

But the world was still shivering. The target seemed to shift and blur left and right. Joe’s feet trembled and his body was slumped in a terrible firing position. The other man barely hesitated. He drew a sidearm of his own, a Beretta, and fired three quick rounds in return.

Joe felt something slam into his chest. The force threw him back onto the asphalt, knocking the air out of him. He gasped. It was agony but some part of him knew it was good because he could still breathe. Then he looked up, realising he was out in the open and the robber was taking deliberate aim at his head.

“Hey!”

Cisco. Cisco who’d pulled the guard to safety and was now charging flat-out across the road towards the barrel of the gun. Joe wanted to shout but it was much too late. The weapon was almost levelled, there was no way it would miss, when Cisco threw both arms out in front of him. Some half-visible force caught the gunman and hurled him backwards into the van’s rear compartment. He landed on his face in a pile of cash.

Cisco had just a moment to realise he had no cover and no plan when the black whirlwind roared out of the van and bore down on him. Cisco leapt back, raising his hands with no time to save himself. Then Joe dragged his pistol up and fired into the maelstrom.

There was another scream, this one almost human, and the Top suddenly reversed, disappearing around the side of the van. His partner sprang out of the back and followed, cradling his strange helmet under one arm. The sound of the wind faded away, and then an engine roared into life in the distance.

Cisco stumbled up to him. “Joe! Joe!” He grabbed the radio again. “Delta Whiskey Two, Westchester Avenue. Officer down, I need… I need an ambulance. Two ambulances. Suspects… escaping south in an SUV. Requesting pursuit. Do you copy?”

The radio hissed. “We copy.”

Cisco dropped the mic back towards its cradle. It missed. He ignored it. “Joe?” he shouted desperately.

Joe’s whole chest ached. Pain stabbed at him with every breath. He managed to trace his fingers across the surface of his chest and find the hot metal dent where the bullet had stopped.

“I’m okay,” he gasped. “The vest caught it.”

Cisco stared at him for a moment and then his knees gave way. He flopped to the ground with his hands running uncontrollably through his hair. “Oh fuck,” he whispered. “Oh fuck.”

Joe hauled himself into a sitting position, reached out and squeezed Cisco’s shoulder with the arm that didn’t hurt so much. “You did good, kid,” he said.

“Oh fuck,” Cisco said again.

“How’s… the guard?”

“He’s… he’s alive.”

Cisco pushed himself upright and helped Joe to sit on the trunk of the car. Joe yanked the plug out of one ear and suddenly he could hear the sirens coming closer. Like he was forcing himself to take every step, Cisco walked back to the van and looked into the cab. Whatever he saw wasn’t good.

Joe tried not to think about how much it hurt to breathe. He really tried not to think about looking down the barrel of a gun or what would have happened if Cisco hadn’t got his superpower to work. Instead, he thought about the robber whose helmet had been knocked off inside the van, and if there was a security camera in there.

“Joe,” Cisco called. “There’s a bullet here! In one of the van’s plates! I think there’s blood on it.”

Maybe he’d clipped the human tornado after all. Joe West knew very well that bullets would stop a metahuman just like anybody else.

A squad car roared around the corner. The cavalry at long last. Joe wanted to collapse, but watching the reinforcements tear down Westchester towards them, he was suddenly struck how long and wide it was. All the roads were like that in this part of town. More than a few stupid kids got pulled over drag racing on them.

Despite the pain, the thought that had been eluding him since he’d read the bank robbery reports began to crystallise.

“Cisco,” he hissed. “These guys, they had a plan for cops. They knew how they were going to hit the van and get away. They did the same thing at the bank.”

“Yeah…” Cisco agreed.

“But at the bank they waited,” Joe went on, “and out here they could get away from us… but this part of town’s a big race track.”

“So?”

“So they’d planned for cops, but they’d know they wouldn’t be able to outrun the Flash in the open.”

“But the Flash isn’t…” Cisco’s eyes went wide. “ _Shit_. They knew he wasn’t coming? How?”

Joe did his best to shrug. “I don’t know.”

He gripped his badge tightly and tried to raise his hand above his head. Cisco helped him, and he waved it so the other cops could see. Two of them came past the armoured car at a run, calling out. The back doors were still hanging open. Hundred-dollar bills swirled out into the street, but they might have been dry leaves for all it seemed to matter.


	7. Vibe Vs Killer Frost

In the week since the Rogues had broken into Palmer Tech, Caitlin had been hiding out in cheap motels on the outskirts of the city, playing the ‘in town for a conference’ card. She kept moving, worried that someone would connect her with the uncertain image obtained from the backup surveillance system that her research had missed. The reports of the robbery had followed CCPN’s lead and focussed on Snart and the Rogues, but she’d seen her name in the columns. Or rather her new name. She was Killer Frost now whether she liked it or not.

She already knew she was low on time, so she had to focus. The neural interface needed to be adapted into her thermal suit. The connections had to be secured and reliable. There were power issues to consider. The extra components she needed were ordered to untraceable PO boxes; years of helping fight crime had taught her a few tricks of the trade.

She worked all the time she could guarantee she wouldn’t be disturbed, staying up late to avoid attention, flinching at the sound of sirens in the city streets even though they always passed her by. She kept the suit off for as long as she dared, working on it until her body temperature dropped and her thoughts began to fog. She kept her mind on the task at hand, not thinking of those long bright days at STAR Labs as they built another machine to do the impossible. All of that was long gone. She remembered the lessons that Ronnie and Cisco had taught her, but tried hard not to think of them.

It took less time than she’d thought to get the adapted suit ready. She should have remembered that Cisco always built his projects with later tinkering in mind. After that, she just had to teach herself to use the neural interface, to direct the heat exchange with thoughts rather than the controls on her sleeves. That was the hardest part; to connect the interface to a laptop and make herself issue commands, almost shouting the words in her head, until the program began to recognise the patterns and adapt the responses of the suit correctly.

She was allowing herself a short break for food – her low body temperature meant she didn’t need to eat much anymore – and a rest from programming, when there was a knock on her door.

She went still, then, very slowly, reached out and shut her laptop. Her bag was by the door. There was a fire escape beside the bathroom window. It would probably take her no more than ninety seconds to reach her car.

“Katie, it’s me. I know you’re in there.”

That left her no choice. She opened the door and let Lisa Snart saunter in.

Lisa looked her up and down. “So… that’s the new look?”

Caitlin shifted awkwardly. The original suit had been pared down to the point that it was almost underwear, capable of providing her basic heat needs and backups. The collectors were now separate, worn over the base and linked to the new interface. Finally, Caitlin had added a further layer of shock absorbing material and a few redundancies to protect the distribution system from damage. With a long jacket, it had the further advantage of not looking anything at all like something Caitlin Snow would wear.

“Did you make it work?” Lisa asked. “Show me something. Please?”

Caitlin wasn’t sure why she did it, but let her arms relax by her side. She closed her eyes and a spoke a command in her head. The interface picked up the signal through the metal pins resting over her spine and transmitted them to the heat collectors.

There was a whisper of wind. The air around her got colder. Lisa took a nervous step back as the temperature continued to fall. When Caitlin told the collectors to stop and opened her eyes, she saw Lisa hugging herself, exhaling and watching her breath condense.

“Wow.” Lisa actually looked a little unnerved. “That’s some trick, Katie. Can you do anything else?”

Caitlin wordlessly filled a mug from the basin. She put it on the windowsill and stepped back. Then she raised her arms and imagined a cone rather than a sphere projecting from the collectors. The wind was stronger this time, the temperature dropped even more. Caitlin gave it to the count of ten and then thought the collectors back into inactivity.

Lisa cautiously picked up the mug. It was full of ice. She and tapped a fingernail against the surface to see if it was really solid.

Then her uncertain expression vanished behind a smirk. “Poor Cisco, missing out on all this.”

“What do want, Lisa?” Caitlin asked.

“To let you know we were watching you,” Lisa replied. “To see what you could do now. Oh, and to say sorry.”

Caitlin realised too late that while her eyes were following Lisa she’d turned her back on the door. She spun, raising her arms, and looked at Snart over the barrel of the Cold Gun.

“Careful, Doctor Snow,” he drawled. “Mick’s gun might be a snack to you, and you could jam Lisa’s, but we both know this is immune. But you aren’t immune to it, are you? That’s your secret. Try to freeze me and I’m afraid Lisa will need someone else to go shopping with.”

Caitlin turned her head just enough to confirm that Lisa was pointing the Gold Gun at her back. She dropped her arms and stared up at Snart’s goggles.

“We made a deal.”

Snart shook his head. “No, you did. Barry’s marker died with him. No transfers. I don’t owe you anything. But you owe me now. We helped you steal that very expensive piece of technology from Palmer Tech, and we haven’t told the police where to find Killer Frost.”

“The book –”

“The book was a down payment,” Snart responded. “First rule of successful criminal enterprise, Doctor Snow: never steal anything you can’t sell. My contacts are having some trouble finding a buyer. So you owe me until I say otherwise.”

“You son of a bitch,” Caitlin hissed.

“Don’t talk about my mom,” Snart said calmly.

Caitlin looked behind her again. Lisa’s gun was still levelled and her face was flat. Caitlin didn’t imagine for a second she’d side against her brother.

“What do you want, Snart?”

Snart lowered the gun. “To help you make a lot of money. Starting a new life is very expensive. Believe me, I know. So come with us, and we’ll discuss tonight’s business transaction. I’d like to be back at the club before Mick gets bored.”

“He’s been caught by the fire department more than the cops,” Lisa said.

Caitlin forced herself to appear relaxed. “Let me get my coat.”

She kept her movements as slow and smooth as possible. They both watched her carefully as she slipped the long jacket on. Then Snart pulled off his parka and Lisa led the way to the car. Caitlin sat in the back while the siblings rode in the front. Lisa talked idly for a few minutes until Snart pointedly turned up the radio.

The second news item was about an armoured car robbery. Just another day in Central City.

* * *

Cisco didn’t know what to do with himself. The morning had passed in a haze of statements and evidence collecting on Westchester. He’d even tried his hand at some of the paperwork, figuring it would save Joe some time when the doctors were finished with him. Crystal had dropped by the office and helped him out, saying it was what good partners did. He hadn’t realised the implications until much later.

Joe was going to be okay, though. His vest had done its job, but the bullet had still cracked at least one rib. They’d taken him to hospital to make sure that was all, and to issue him with some painkillers.

The security guards hadn’t been so lucky. Cisco tried to keep his mind busy, because he knew if he didn’t he’d start seeing them again. The car’s windshield was designed to stop bullets, but the Top had sent a steady stream of high-gauge ball bearings into the reinforced glass until it had given out and the bearings had hammered into the men in the cab. One of them had been killed instantly, the other one was in surgery with doctors fighting to repair the damage to his skull. The last one, the one in the back, had been concussed and broken an arm and a leg when the Top had thrown him through the air.

Cisco had walked away from the robbery without a scratch.

He should go home, he told himself. Go home and rest. Sleep if he could. He’d been able to do that before, no matter what trouble the he and his friends had gotten themselves into. They’d go out, they’d laugh, they’d remind each other that they were okay.

Now it was just him. Afraid to close his eyes in case he saw those bodies. Or his own.

He hadn’t understood what he’d done at the time. He’d just known that Joe would die if he stayed where he was. The rest was too fast to understand. It was only when he replayed it afterwards that he realised he’d charged a man with a gun and there’d been a split-second when he’d actually looked straight into the barrel. If his powers hadn’t kicked in he’d have lived for one more step. And then the bullet would have stopped him forever.

It wasn’t fair, he thought. He had powers, and they’d saved his life. Another twisted debt to the man who had called himself Harrison Wells. He wondered if that was how Barry had seen it. Every person the Flash saved, every criminal he stopped, one more act thrown in the face of the murderer who’d set all this up for his own reasons.

Cisco didn’t know. But he did know what Barry would say. Barry would say he was alive, and that was good thing. Barry would say the world wasn’t fair, but that wasn’t their fault. Barry would say there was a job to do, even if Cisco was the only one left to do it.

He went back downstairs to the lab, grabbing a cup of coffee on the way. He logged into the computers and flipped on his MP3 player, finding something, anything, to drown out the silence. When the coffee was gone he sucked on a lollipop to wash away the taste.

He read statements from witnesses along the route and from the bank staff who’d been in that morning. He made himself listen to the recorded radio traffic between the bank and the van, shutting it off after it ended in yelling and shattering glass, knowing too well what came after that. Then he went over the crime scene photos, trying to take in the details of the operation and break them down into their component parts. The force of the ball bearings on the windshield, the impact pattern the Top had made on the rear doors and the van’s interior as he had torn through them, making further notes estimate the metahuman’s powers and maybe his limits. Then he fed the data from the sensors in Joe’s car into an analysis program so he could figure out how the vertigo weapon worked.

The Top’s partner, the gunman, really needed a name. He’d have to think about that.

But first he looked at the parts of the robbery which hadn’t gone to plan. Forensics had pulled one of Joe’s bullets out of the van’s side. Cisco had been right, there was blood on it. That blood was now being broken down so they could scan the databases for a DNA match. He had no idea if they would find one or not, and without a dedicated forensic tech to focus on the job, it would be at least Monday before they got any answers.

The second opening was the one that Cisco had to remind himself he’d created. Before being taken to hospital, Joe had told him to check if the van’s rear compartment had a camera. It did. He found the file uploaded and waiting analysis. No one had touched it yet, so Cisco logged his ID and went to work.

The rear guard had switched on the camera just before loading started. Cisco watched the staff fill the drawers with cash and then lock them. He wondered if the forty thousand dollars the robbers had gotten away with counted as a good haul out of two hundred thousand. Then the guard checked his carbine and was locked inside. Cisco skipped the next part, the slow patient drive into the city’s outskirts, watching the fair-haired man waiting and hoping nothing would happen.

Then the image lurched. Cisco rewound. The guard was thrown around the compartment as the van was brought to a stop. He staggered, readying his gun. Then something flickered on the screen and he was stumbling around, trying desperately to hold on to the walls as though the compartment was spinning. He barely registered the impact as the Top slammed into the outer doors, but he tried to ready his weapon as they gave way. It was no use, the whirlwind swallowed him and he was gone.

The Top rushed into the van, ripping into the drawers, shaking the vehicle so much that the footage was almost reduced to static. Cisco barely even saw the partner hurtle past, he had to rewind and watch it in slow motion to be sure. He looked at the time code as he did so; less than a minute had passed since the van stopped, but it had felt like hours to him.

The Top disappeared and the van stopped shaking. His partner lay on his face for a second and then crawled to his feet. He bent his head, turned it from one side to the other, and then wrenched off his helmet and jumped out of the van towards his getaway car.

Cisco backtracked. He went through the helmet removal frame by frame. There was just a second’s window as the man on the screen was looking up. Cisco picked the three least-blurred frames and fed them into the enhancement program.

There.

A guy of about thirty with short, black hair and narrow eyes. He was definitely Latin, his skin almost the same shade as Cisco’s. There was something in his expression that made Cisco think of Joe; angry, but keeping a lid on it. Perhaps the word he was looking for was ‘professional’.

There was no one around to help him celebrate, so Cisco had to make do with noting his findings in the electronic casefile and then transferring the images into his specially constructed search program. It would take longer to run here than back at STAR Labs, but it would run.

Cisco sat back and waited. He had all the time in the world, and nothing else to do with it.

* * *

Snart laid a collection of maps and diagrams on the abandoned nightclub’s private table. The technical blueprints reminded Caitlin of what she’d seen in Ronnie’s department in the days when the accelerator was still under construction. The neat hand-drawings made her think of Cisco’s persistent suggestions for late-stage improvements.

Despite the availability of screens, it seemed that Snart had an old-fashioned streak and all of his planning was done on paper. He spread out the map and indicated the fashionable part of downtown.

“This is Hatton Plaza. I imagine you know it, Doctor Snow.”

“I do.”

She didn’t want to tell him that was where Ronnie had bought her engagement ring.

“A dozen of the city’s biggest jewellers,” Snart went on. “Huddled together for protection.”

“I thought you were going to wait for this, Len,” Rory said.

“I was,” Snart replied. “But there was an armoured car robbery this morning on the other side of town. It seems we have some competition. But it also presented an opportunity. Half the duty cops will be on the lookout for those robbers and the cash they took. They won’t be covering the plaza. They don’t have the manpower.”

Rory grunted but didn’t say anything. Lisa smiled. “I never knew you had it in you.”

Snart continued, “The jewellers have a central vault for extra protection, thirty-one feet below street level. There’s an emergency access point here. We drop Lisa inside and she can clear out as much as she can in three minutes. Then Mick will cut open the door to let her out.”

“So where do I fit into this master plan?” Caitlin asked.

“The access override,” Snart said, tapping one of the wiring diagrams. “I estimate it will take me or Mick two minutes to make these adjustments. I’m sure with your training and experience, you could do it in half that.”

“What if I refuse?”

Snart smiled. “Then you die. Or you run, and spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder.”

Caitlin looked down at the diagrams. It was no choice at all.

“One question,” she said. “Why the plaza?”

“It was Lisa’s turn to choose,” Snart replied.

* * *

Cisco snapped awake. He’d been dreaming, but he wasn’t sure what about. He thought he remembered the robber from the morning arguing with a huge man whose white hair and lined face made him look like a mountainside come to life.  

He struggled to pull himself out of the dream, separate the vibe from reality. He twisted his neck and felt a stab of pain. That got him the last of the way back to the lab under the precinct. He rolled his head slowly; he didn’t even remember starting to doze. Now it was eight p.m., the building was quiet and it was dark outside.

He forced himself out of his chair, walked around the lab a couple of times. Then he went to the bathroom and found another cup of coffee, whose taste kicked him awake. Unfortunately, that meant the memories of the morning were coming back.

He checked his phone. It was silent. No calls, no messages. He thought about calling Joe, but didn’t want to disturb him. He thought about calling Dante, but didn’t want to start a conversation with the story of how he nearly died again.

 Then he went back to the computer. It was blinking, showing up results. He realised why and swore to himself. He’d been too tired and too distracted when he’d started the search. It still wasn’t finished because he’d set it looking for every face in his database all across the city, not just the man from the armoured car.

“Damn it,” he muttered. “A whole fucking day.”

He shouldn’t be there. He shouldn’t be doing this. He should just find a bar and drink until he couldn’t see straight in any universe.

He hit the computer again and it chimed in protest. He ran his hands over his eyes and looked at the woman on the screen. Her hair was up and she was wearing a sundress, but both he and the program were certain that it was Lisa Snart. He recognised the corner she was standing on. He’d been there himself two days earlier with Joe, watching the jewellery delivery.

Lisa Snart outside Hatton Plaza, the day after the shipment came in, and again that morning. He’d bet a hundred thousand dollars in jewels he knew where the Rogues were going to be.

He dug out his cell and called Joe. It went straight to voicemail. Iris had probably switched it off so he’d rest.

Go upstairs and find Singh? Talk to the night watch commander? He knew what they’d say.

Cisco stood in the centre of the lab, hands pressed together. No STAR Labs, no Flash, no Joe, no friends. Just him.

The laptop on the table was rattling. The table itself clattered against the stone floor. The dust motes in the air were shimmering. Middle C.

Cisco took a breath, and the sound stopped. He reached into the recycling bin and fished out an empty soda can. He put the can on a chair at the far end of the room and stepped back.

The first few times he’d done it by accident, but his friends had helped him to learn to control his power. He reached inside himself, feeling the universe hum through him. He took hold of it and the hum got louder and louder until it was singing across his skin. He felt the pressure build up, fixed his eyes on the can, threw out his arm towards it, and released the wave.

The vibration swept out from him, filling the room, bouncing of the walls. But it wasn’t focussed. The chair just rocked a little, rattling the can.

He took a few slow breaths, looking at the chair as if it was the only thing in the room. Power was nothing without control, without refinement. He was afraid that was something Wells had said, long ago. Had he been talking about the accelerator, or about Barry? Cisco couldn’t remember.

A great and noble destiny awaits you, Cisco.

The chair slammed back against the far wall. The soda can flew into the air and clattered to the floor.

“You’re damn right it does,” Cisco whispered.

* * *

Caitlin was a doctor, not an engineer, but she’d spent more time with them recently than the members of her own profession. She’d learned the language and she’d come to understand the basic principles were the same as medicine: you applied a cause to generate an effect.

The diagram Snart had given her was complicated, but it was nothing compared to, say, a clotting cascade. Snart had done most of the hard work himself, researching exactly how to override the security access. All she had to do was learn the key components and follow the method. Like building Ikea furniture with your fingertips. That, she considered, was the other reason she was being forced to do this: Snart and Rory didn’t exactly have surgeon’s hands.

What disturbed her afterwards was how easy it was for her to shut off the part of her brain reminding her this was a crime and treat the security system as a puzzle that needed to be solved. It was a skill that made her a competent doctor. Now, it was making her a thief. She wondered if Doctor Wells would have approved. She was sure Professor Moriarty would have done.

“Ready, Doctor Snow?” Snart asked at nine.

She been given six hours. She’d learned more information for exams in less time than that. She wondered if he’d really go through with his threat, but knew they’d never have to find out.

“Almost.”

She carefully wound her hair up under the wig cap, settled the blonde hair on top of it and made sure it was secure. By the time Lisa appeared to offer some help, the work was done. Then she put in the blue contact lenses and looked at herself in the mirror. Doctor Snow isn’t here. Killer Frost will see you now.

They drove to Hatton Plaza in another hideously-coloured minivan. Lisa took the wheel with Snart next to her. Caitlin had to sit in the back with Rory. He didn’t even look at her, content to snap his lighter and fiddle with his gun. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d started talking to it.

She got out of the car with excitement tingling all the way to her fingertips. She didn’t know what that said about her. Adventures with Barry usually involved a lot of tension followed by terror and rapid controlled thinking. The thrill usually came afterwards when everything miraculously came together and their improvisation won the day.

This was different. This was calculated from the start. And it wasn’t like the Palmer Tech robbery, where she’d spent most of it standing back and watching the Rogues work. This time, no matter how much she wished things were different, she was part of the plan. She was a Rogue. As if to prove it, Lisa caught her eye and grinned.

Hatton Plaza was just an indoor row of shop fronts running through the foot of a high-end vertical mall. During the day it was open at both ends, but at night these were sealed off. Snart, leading the way, barely paused as he reached the barrier. The Cold Gun flared blue-white and Caitlin had to raise an arm against the glare. By the time the afterimages faded, Snart had already smashed his way through the frozen steel like it was glass.

“Seven minutes,” he said.

Caitlin’s legs moved on their own. She walked quickly down the mall, past signs, benches and fake plants, towards the access point. Around her were flashes of white, red and gold as the rest of the team took out the security cameras. The mall was very dimly lit and the shop fronts were sealed tight. There was nothing valuable left inside them anyway. It was all safe, in theory.

The emergency access point was hidden behind a panel in the wall between a diamond market and a watch store. She reached it at the same time as Rory. He produced a crowbar and wrenched the panel off the wall. Beneath it was an access hatch that would allow communications and supplies to be dropped into the vault in the event of a lockdown but would be almost impossible to use as an escape route. Another few seconds of heavy work allowed Rory to get at the control systems.

“Showtime, Doctor Snow,” Snart said as he lit a torch behind her. “Sixty seconds.”

“Hold that steady,” she responded, pulled on a pair of surgical gloves and went to work.

She had to put her hand into the uneven gap up to the wrist to manipulate the circuitry. She had to recognise the component layout by touch, matching the sensations from her fingers to the diagram in her mind. She allowed herself twenty seconds to map the interior, then visually double checked. She glanced behind her. Snart’s expression was empty. Rory was just waiting. Lisa looked nervous and excited, like she was watching a gameshow.

“Wire cutters,” Caitlin said.

Snart handed them over. She stripped back two of the wires – the light was terrible for distinguishing colours – and wound them together. She used a pair of pliers to pull a fuse out of the back wall, but it was ten nervous seconds before she could replace it with a heavier one. Then she cut the last wire.

“Five seconds,” Snart told her.

“Battery,” Caitlin said.

She connected the two poles to the cut wire. There was a hiss and the faint smell of burning. The charge from the battery rushed through the system, passing the fuse, which would have prevented this trick if it hadn’t been replaced. Several of the components overloaded, but a split-second before it burned out, the surge triggered the hatch release.

The vent fell open. Darkness yawned inside. The gap wasn’t nearly big enough for Snart or Rory to fit through.

“Sixty-one seconds,” Snart remarked. “Not bad.”

“That would have taken you longer than two minutes,” Caitlin shot back.

“Maybe.”

Lisa took her jacket off. “See, we can all work together. Just try not to fight while I’m gone.”

Elegant as a dancer, she climbed off the floor and slipped her legs into the vent, then turned herself around. Rory handed her a bag.

“Three minutes, Lisa,” Snart told her.

“Look after Katie for me,” Lisa replied, and then dropped down the shaft out of sight.

“Stand by the other door, Mick,” Snart indicated. “Start cutting when you get the signal.”

Caitlin couldn’t help herself from asking, “Why didn’t you just burn through that door to start with?”

“There’s a heat trip in the door’s access controls,” Snart told her. “If the temperature rises or falls by more than thirty degrees in ten seconds, it will seal the contents of the vault.”

“Yeah, you think of everything don’t you!”

They both turned. Cisco was standing halfway down the mall, between them and their exit. And this was definitely not part of the plan.

“Cisco,” Snart called, “nice to see you out of the lab.” He raised a hand as Rory started forward. “Stay where you are, Mick. Our new recruit can take care of this.” He dropped his voice to barely a whisper. “Deal with him, Doctor Snow, or _I will_.”

The three steps towards Cisco were some of the hardest Caitlin ever had to take. She stopped beside one of the benches. Cisco looked her up and down, and this was an awful time to wonder what he might think of the modifications to her suit. He looked the same as ever. She didn’t know why, but she’d been expecting something different.

“Leave, Cisco,” she said. “I know what I’m doing.”

“You sure about that?” Cisco responded. “The Caitlin I know isn’t a criminal.”

“Then I guess you don’t know me that well after all.”

“I could stop you,” he said.

She slowly shook her head. “No, you couldn’t.”

“I could try.”

“Cisco _leave_!”

She wished she could say it was an accident, but her suit didn’t work like that. She knew she’d given the command.

The gust of cold air slammed into Cisco, blowing his hair back, whipping at his clothes. He stood his ground, but only just. He stared back at her for a few long seconds, and then raised his arm. She couldn’t see the flicker in the air this time, and the boom was more powerful than she’d expected.  It hit her like a punch, knocking her back a step.

Their eyes met one last time. Time should have stopped, but it didn’t. They only had an instant to make up their minds.

She threw up both her arms at the same instant he did. A blast of freezing wind screamed down the mall towards him and smashed into a boom coming the other way. The ice-cold air rebounded, crashing over Caitlin and leaving real frost in the wig. She tried again, but Cisco was already moving out of the way and she froze one of the fake trees instead. 

He threw another boom, but this was weaker. She barely felt it. She did feel the shriek that followed, filling the whole mall and making Snart and Rory clamp their hands over their ears.

She had just enough focus to respond, this time aiming the blast along the floor so it swept Cisco’s legs out from under him. The sound mercifully stopped.

From the ground, he fired a boom that hurled one of the mall’s signs towards her. It missed, but a second boom sent one a lot closer. She pressed up against the wall to keep out of the way of a third, but saw Cisco moving across the mall and realised she’d backed herself into a corner.

She leapt straight forward, feeling the shockwave go past. It struck the wall where she’d been standing, ripping a water fountain free from its mounting. The pipe cracked and water flowed over the tiled floor.

Caitlin saw a flicker of light in the corner of her eye and realised Rory was cutting through the access door. Cisco must have seen it too, but she knew she had to keep his attention.

She reached out for the water, freezing it so she could grab a shard. It was messy and inelegant, but it flew well enough as she hurled it past Cisco. He turned towards her, caught by indecision, and she used the opportunity to refine the shape of the next splinter into something that she could aim. That one was close enough he had to duck.

Cisco started towards her across the mall as she threw another dagger. A boom smashed it of the air mid-flight and she was trying to think what to do next when Snart shouted, “That’s enough! Mick!”

“No!” Caitlin screamed.

The Heat Gun roared. A stream of fire shot past her towards Cisco. She reached out for it, frantically pulling at the flames, trying to drag them off course as Cisco threw a desperate boom straight ahead. The beam was ripped apart, exploding into a fireball that blew Cisco backwards. He landed on his back beside the frozen tree.

Caitlin took a step towards him, then Snart seized her arm and the Cold Gun pressed into her side. Lisa ran past both of them, skidding to a halt next to Cisco.

“He’s alive,” she called after a few seconds. “He’ll be okay!” Then she gave Caitlin a mischievous grin, bent over and kissed Cisco’s cheek.

Caitlin pulled her arm free of Snart’s grip but made herself stay still. She kept her head up as the Rogues made their escape, bags of jewellery spread between them. She did manage a glance at Cisco as they passed him; he was moving slightly and definitely breathing. He’d need a doctor, but he’d be okay.

The group spread out as they emerged into the night. Rory slowed to cover the retreat while Lisa hurried ahead to get the car started. Caitlin was keenly aware that Snart stayed at her side. When she could bring herself to look at him, she wasn’t surprised to see a smile.

“That was quite a performance, Doctor Snow,” he said. “You think they bought it?”


	8. After Hours

Louise Lincoln had just finished her re-heated dinner – one of several made on her day off and then frozen so she’d have a full meal when she got back from the hospital – and was weighing a second glass of wine against the early start tomorrow morning, when someone buzzed her apartment. She straightened herself up, put down the empty glass and walked towards the phone. Her friends, such as they were, would have called first and knew better than to disturb her after a long shift. It was far too late for a delivery, which left either someone pressing the wrong button on the street or someone playing a joke. Or something unexpected. Louise had learned to expect that, living in this city.

The intercom’s picture wasn’t great, but she’d recognised her caller before he said, “Doctor Lincoln, it’s Cisco. I need your help. Can I come up? Please?”

She was tempted to tell him to go away, but her doctor’s instincts wouldn’t let her. There was something about the way he looked on the screen, eyes flickering around him, barely able to stand still. Agitated. Maybe scared.

“Alright, come up.”

When he came in, she found out she was right. There was a bruise just above his left eye that reached past his hairline, his shirt was torn and he was holding a scrap of it against his arm. There were smaller cuts on his forearms, and as Louise looked closer she noticed something odd about his fingers.

“What the hell happened to you?” she demanded.

Cisco shifted awkwardly. “I… umm… I can’t tell you.”

Something to do with the Flash, it had to be. Louise had known that Caitlin was involved with the city’s resident superhero ever since her old friend had been brought into Louise’s emergency room in a cryogenic state that all the laws of medicine said should have killed her. By some convergence of chance, fate, and that infernal particle accelerator, it hadn’t. Ever since then, Louise had been helping Caitlin monitor her condition, but she’d made sure to stay out of the stranger parts of her life. Louise’s involvement with the Flash had been limited to ticking the little box the city’s hospitals had been forced to add to their admittance forms to cover new patients arriving in gusts of wind and flickers of light.

That brought her up short. How long had it been since she’d last done that? She hadn’t paid attention to the theories that he was dead or on vacation, but when one of his friends was standing in her lounge after having very obviously been in a fight, it was a hard question to ignore.

She pushed aside the theorising and focussed on the welfare of her patient. The first course of action was obvious. “Cisco, you should go to a hospital,” she said firmly.

“I can’t,” he said.

“Why not?”

“I just can’t, okay?”

Louise sighed. “What about Caitlin?”

“She’s… not around,” he answered, lying very badly.

“I am not a goddamn mob doctor for superheroes,” Louise said.

“I know,” Cisco replied. “Please. If I go anywhere else they’ll want me to tell them what happened and… I just can’t, okay?”

No, Louise reflected, she wasn’t a mob doctor. They probably got paid for this sort of thing.

“Sit down,” she told him. “Let me look at your head.”

She checked the bruise. It seemed to be mostly superficial and Cisco answered all the concussion questions quickly enough. She didn’t think he could have got here if he’d hit his head that badly, but she took no chances. The cut on his arm wasn’t serious either. She put a dressing on it anyway, examining it closely as she did so. It might have been done by a shard of glass, but she didn’t think that was quite right.  

Finally, she looked at his forearms and hands. Beneath the small cuts and scrapes, his skin had a noticeable red tinge, and it was starting to peel in places. It could almost have been sunburn, except the hairs on his arms were unmistakable singed.  

Most of Louise’s neighbours knew she was a doctor. As a result of that and healthy paranoia about accidents in the home, she had enough medical supplies stored around the apartment to handle anything thing that didn’t require calling 911. In this case, she went for the aloe vera gel and gauze. It wasn’t that hard to give yourself a first degree burn, but they were relatively simple to treat.

“Change these dressings twice a day,” she told Cisco. “Keep the area clean. If it starts swelling or gets infected, see a doctor and tell them you leant on your soldering iron or something.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

She took his hands, checking them for any further damage. They weren’t burned, but there was something else. Rather than being reddened, the skin was slightly paler than it should have been.

“Cisco,” she said quietly, “are your fingers tingling?”

“Yeah. Why?”

She looked at him for a moment, seeing what he hadn’t told her. Her speciality was the damage caused by low temperatures and she’d applied that skill to patients varying from climbers on some of the biggest mountains in the world to clumsy would-be sailors pulled out of the lake. And she found herself living in a city with a criminal who, while he apparently believed killing to be beneath him, had sent plenty of half-frozen guards, cops and sometimes just passers-by her way.

But the thing that frightened her, made her realise why Cisco wouldn’t just go to the ER, was that she recognised the result of an encounter with Captain Cold, and this wasn’t it.

“Cisco, did Caitlin do this to you?”

His eyes went wide. “What?”

She’d seen the truth. She didn’t look at him, retreating to her training. “It’s not easy to get burns on frostbite at the same time, Cisco. Was your friend the burning man there too? And don’t tell me it was some sort of game because she’s not that stupid and neither am I.”

He grabbed both her hands, wincing slightly at the warmth on his chilled fingers. “It was my fault, okay? I was stupid and it’s my fault. Caitlin’s doing something and it’s really clever and really brave but I can’t tell you what it is. I just can’t.”

Something she’d seen in the news earlier that week flickered through her mind. The Flash, the Rogues, Captain Cold and a mysterious metahuman woman with eyes like ice.

“ _She’s_ Killer Frost?”

Louise held Cisco’s gaze. His silence told her everything she needed to know.

And then the door buzzed.

She let go of Cisco’s hands. He just shrugged. The phone buzzed again.

Louise slowly went over and flipped on the screen. Iris West, full of the same agitated energy she’d seen in Cisco when he’d arrived, turned her head to speak into the intercom.

“Doctor Lincoln? I’m sorry, but is Cisco Ramon there?”

Louise turned her head and mouthed Iris’ name. Cisco slumped onto the couch. “Oh no.”

Iris reached the apartment door less than a minute later. She strode through and Louise backed up to let her father come inside as well. Detective West was moving very slowly and breathing in a gentle, cautious way that made Louise wonder about him as well.

Iris stopped in front of the couch and looked Cisco up and down. “Should you be here?” he asked.

“Relax,” Iris shot back. “I’ll say I just drove my dad here so _he_ could tear you a new one.” She turned to Louise. “Is he alright?”

“Cuts and bruises,” Louise told her. “First degree burns on his arms.” She indicated the wrappings. “Minor frostbite on his hands.”

Satisfied that he was in no danger of dying on her, Iris turned back to Cisco. “What the hell were you thinking?” she demanded. “The Rogues could have killed you.”

“I had to make sure she was okay,” Cisco responded. “We hadn’t heard anything since Palmer Tech. You think I was gonna trust Snart?”

“Cisco, I know,” Iris said. “I was worried too. I was. But this is what we agreed. She knows what she’s doing.”

Cisco glanced at Detective West. “Don’t look at me,” the older man responded. “I’m a sick man, and Iris is doing just fine by herself.”

Iris sat down next to Cisco. “So… did you see her?”

Cisco nodded. “Yeah.” Suddenly he was smiling. “Iris, she was awesome. She’d fixed the interface into the suit and she was controlling the temperature just by thinking about it.”

“And she kicked your ass?” Iris smiled faintly.

“No, no,” Cisco protested. “I was holding my own. You know, till Heatwave tried to light me on fire.”

They both seemed to have forgotten Louise was there. But Detective West hadn’t. “How much do you know?” he asked casually.

“Cisco didn’t tell me anything.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Louise sighed. She really wanted that second glass of wine now. “I know that my college friend has managed to turn her impossible medical condition into superpowers. I know that she’s joined the most wanted criminals in Central City. I know things are actually much more complicated than that. And I know I can’t ask why.”

“That’s about it,” Joe said.

“Wow,” Iris remarked to Cisco. “You can’t even lie by omission can you?”

Cisco shrugged. “Not like we didn’t know that already. Why do you think I’ve been avoiding you for the last couple of weeks?”

“We should go,” Detective West spoke before Iris could respond. “Doctor Lincoln, thank you for helping Cisco. It won’t happen again.”

Louise wasn’t sure why she did it. She knew she could cope with extreme situations, but she didn’t really seek them out. But she’d also seen people take on high-altitude walls of ice and stone simply because they were there. So it could have been the urge to be the best and to prove it, to go up against the extremes and to win. Then again, it could have been knowing how important it was to have even the flimsiest of safety lines when things go wrong.

The three people in her lounge would keep doing whatever it was they did no matter what. Two of them were injured, but that wouldn’t stop them. They’d keep on going till the job was done. But it was a dangerous job and they didn’t have Caitlin to support them anymore.

She grabbed a pen, scribbled on a piece of paper and held it out to Detective West. “Here. My cell number. If you have something you can’t take to a hospital, call me. I’ll come if I can.”

Detective West carefully folded up the paper and put it in his pocket. “Thank you, doctor.”

“Thank you,” Iris and Cisco echoed.

“Thank me by making sure you don’t need it,” she told them.

The trio filed out. Cisco and Iris first, still talking quietly, with Detective West bringing up the rear like he was unwilling to let either of them out of his sight. She didn’t blame him.

With them gone, Louise dropped into a chair next to the abandoned remains of her dinner.

“Christ,” she said. “What the hell am I doing?”

The wine bottle didn’t answer. It did, however, provide her with more wine.

* * *

Even with Cisco’s attempt to interfere, they made it back to the car on schedule. The cops would still be at least ninety seconds away as Snart threw the bags into the trunk. Snow got into the back without a word and Mick jumped in beside her. Then Lisa calmly drove past the high-priced clothing stores and away. To a casual observer, she looked like any other bored designated driver, but Snart could see the tension coiling up as she held her foot over the gas pedal, ready to stamp down if they heard sirens. In the back, Mick was glancing from left to right every time they passed a junction. Snart kept his eyes on the pavements, watching for cops so Lisa didn’t have to. Snow was the only one not looking outside; she’d pulled her wig off and was twisting her fingers through the artificial hair.

Fifteen minutes of evasions and they started to relax. Lisa turned the van back towards the club. Snart made a quick calculation and told her the number of the pre-arranged route he wanted her to take. She followed it without a word.

“How much did you get?” Mick asked from behind him.

“A hundred, easily,” Lisa replied.

“We’ll see,” Snart said.

“That’s what you always say, Len,” Lisa responded. “You should ask these fences for more. If we’re going to be the Rogues, we should start acting like it.”

“Then we’ll all go to prison,” Snart told her. “Fences get cuts so they don’t need reward money.”

“That’s why you make them understand messing us around will be very bad for their health,” Mick said.

Snart turned around. “Business, Mick. We do business. No one gets scared. No one goes to the cops because they’re afraid. No one gets made a better offer. No one gets stupid.”

Mick’s objections subsided into grumblings. Lisa turned back to the road. Snow was watching them all very quietly.

The rest of the drive was silent. Everyone was still on the lookout. They didn’t stop until they were back in the club and the bags were stored in a false panel in what had been the bar.

“I’d say that calls for a beer!” Mick announced.

“Or three,” Lisa agreed.

“First things first,” Snart reminded them.

“God you make a life of crime boring,” Lisa told him.

 They spent the next ten minutes gathering up every single piece of paper that Snart had used to plan the robbery. All the maps, all the schematics and all of their own notes. Lisa and Mick grumbled like they always did. Snow, on the other hand, just went around the room picking up litter like she was tidying up her own apartment. He’d seen her wondering why he did all his planning on paper, and now she was getting her answer. Computers could be penetrated, and it was a lot harder to permanently delete electronic data than most people thought. That sort of thing required outside expertise, and Snart wasn’t willing to risk it. The old ways were simpler.

When they were done, he and Mick walked two blocks to the backlot where he’d set up an empty fuel drum that afternoon. He poured the papers into the drum and then stood back and gave Mick a nod. Mick held down the trigger on his gun, admiring the flames as they dived into the drum and burst out again. Snart stayed, watching the fire until he was sure there was nothing left but ash, then he took Mick’s arm and led him away.

They got back to find a row of shots on the bar and a mismatched collection of beer bottles. Snow handed one to him. It was ice-cold, just the way he liked it.

Lisa and Mick threw back a shot each and slammed their glasses into the bar. “Katie! Your turn!”

“No, thank you,” Snow replied, sipping her beer.

“Come on, Katie,” Lisa pressed, tuning her voice up to a whine. “You just made twenty-five thousand dollars in an hour. That’s worth a few shots. She’s getting a share, right Len?”

“Of course,” Snart said.

Snow gave him a look somewhere between confusion and fury, but she didn’t say anything. She turned back to Lisa. “I have a rule about not doing shots with people who’ve tried to kill me.”

“Well, then you’re never going to have any fun.” Lisa sighed. “I give up. Mick! _Nostrovia_!”

“ _Nostrovia_!” Mick echoed, and one day Snart was going to have to tell them what that word actually meant.

“Are you really going to give me a share?” Snow asked.

“You earned it,” Snart replied.

Snow took another pull of her beer. “Grand theft, assault with metahuman abilities, and a nickname from Cisco in Iris’ column. I guess I really am a Rogue now.”

“You are,” Snart said.

“ _Shit_ ,” she said.

* * *

Snart rose early. The sun was barely up, and that time of day was, he’d found, the best time for working without distractions.

Whoever had fitted out the club had been considerate enough to include a full employee bathroom complete with shower. All in all, it wasn’t a bad place to live as long as you didn’t mind sleeping on a camp bed in what had been the manager’s office, listening to Mick snore.

He retrieved the bags from under the bar, dragged them up the stairs and opened them in the private room. Lisa had simply grabbed whatever caught her eye. He knew he hadn’t given her enough time for finesse or choice, but he trusted her instincts well enough. It was time to see how good they’d been.

He made his notes on a generic legal pad, just a few letters to denote the type of item and an estimate of the price based on extensive experience. Not the retail price; the amount he knew he could get from the fence. Anyone looking at the pad would be able to get a rough idea of what it meant, but not even Lisa would be able to read the code. It was different for every job. Al Capone had been undone by someone deciphering his accounts, and this was not a mistake Snart intended to make.

It took him an hour and a half to go through the complete haul. Rings, bracelets, necklaces, pendants, earrings, watches. Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, opals, sapphires. Yellow gold, white gold, silver, platinum. All organised into neat piles by item and sometimes sub-divided by quality. No individual item worth less than three hundred dollars. His sums came to a total of seventy-one thousand. Lisa would complain he was being cautious, but then she always did, and Snart would rather be cautious than caught. Something was always better than nothing.

After that, he cleared up, put the notes in his pocket and the loot back under the bar. Then he went outside to the minivan and pulled out into the thickening Saturday morning traffic. He drove it eight blocks and stopped in the parking lot of a restaurant. In an hour or so, a contact of a contact would collect the car and make sure it vanished.

Snart set off back towards the club on foot, making a few random turns, watching for familiar license plates and keeping an eye on windows and other reflective surfaces. Then he stopped at a 7-Eleven, bought a breakfast muffin that tasted better than it looked, and headed for the nearest payphone with the change.

He dialled the number from memory. It was 8:15 on a Saturday morning, but the man who answered sounded like he’d also been awake for a while. “Hello?”

“It’s me,” Snart said.

“What’s up?” the man asked.

“Did a job last night,” Snart told him. “Since you came so highly recommended, you get first call. Interested?”

“Always.”

“Jewellery. A mixed bag. Seventy thousand. Yes or no?”

The man went quiet, which made him smart. Snart counted silently and reached five before he heard the reply. “Okay, sure. Give me three days to get the money.”

“I’ll call you in four,” Snart said.

He was about to hang up when he heard a squawked, “Wait!”

“What?”

“What you took on the Palmer Tech job. Not the book, the other thing. Is that for sale?”

“Sorry, that was a favour. Personal use only.” Snart glanced around. “Why?”

“I just know someone who’d pay for that sort of thing. They might even have a job open soon. Are _you_ interested?”

“Sorry, the Rogues aren’t for hire.”

“Nobody said ‘hire’,” the man protested. “Just… if you were to do a certain job then I could guarantee a customer and a serious fee.”

“I’ll think about it,” Snart said, and put the phone down.

He walked back to the club, deep in thought but still watching the streets. He slipped inside, and wasn’t that surprised to find Snow sitting at the bar in her normal clothes, sipping a store-bought coffee. She probably missed the stuff from the place the Flash’s gang used to hang out.

She looked up at him. He’d found her a room and a bed, but he gave it fifty-fifty she hadn’t slept during the night.

“Well?” she asked.

“He asked about your interface,” Snart told her. “He’s got a job for us.”


	9. Absent Without Leave

Cisco missed most of Saturday. He got to bed at two in the morning and woke up at noon for just long enough to change his dressings and order his bodyweight in pizza. Then, sated, he went back to bed. Iris’ orders were that he wasn’t to leave his apartment unless he needed food or medical attention. He didn’t protest. Being part of a superhero’s support team was tiring enough, but he’d had no idea how exhausting – not to mention painful – front-line heroics could be.

He’d have done more of the same on Sunday, except that Dante turned up on his doorstep with a box of home-made empanadas in one hand and a pair of DVDs in the other.

“ _The Good, the Bad and the Ugly_ or _Once Upon a Time in the West_?” he asked. “You pick.”

Cisco didn’t have the energy to argue, so he pointed at random and landed on Clint. He set up the movie while Dante got the plates and the drinks. Leone movies were one of the few things they had in common. Cisco loved the cinematography and how much story the man could tell without a single line of dialogue. Dante’s interest was part of that: Maestro Morricone’s haunting music, drifting through the wasteland, turning the wordless action into a ballet.

And at the end, it’s not the little Mexican guy who gets shot. For a change.

They ate in silence, watching, and then Dante brought them a second round of beers. He glanced over Cisco’s bandages. The lack of surprise since he’d come in told Cisco that his brother had already been at least warned about what had happened.

“Did you really go after that bastard Snart by yourself?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“It’s complicated.”

Of course, Dante wasn’t going to let it drop. “No, not why you went after him. Somebody needs to send his ass back to prison where it belongs. Why’d you do it alone?”

Cisco knew exactly why he hadn’t called Joe or Iris or Crystal or any other actual cop for proper backup. They’d all have tried to talk him out of it, or just stopped him. They’d have reminded him that it was a terrible idea and that Snart and his crew were really dangerous, no matter what arrangements might have been made.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Dante said. “Just know that if I have to get another call from Detective West, no doctor, priest or superhero is going to be able to protect you.”

“Hey, I can hold my own.”

Dante looked over at him. “You’re not the Flash, Cisco. You don’t have to be. And he didn’t do it alone either. He had you backing him up. He was the safest man in Central City.”

Cisco really didn’t know how to respond to that, so he had to resort to, “Do you want to watch this movie or not?”

* * *

He headed into the station on Monday morning wearing a loose, long-sleeved shirt to cover the wrappings on his arms. He figured he’d keep them on for a few more days, just to be sure. He’d gotten some electrical burns over the years, and they weren’t the sort that you could use to impresses people.

 He deliberately ignored the search programs still churning away on the lab computers and focussed on the engineering problem. Finding the two criminals was one thing, stopping them was something else.

The earplugs had been a good start. They’d mitigated the effects of the vertigo gun, but hadn’t prevented them entirely. Cisco watched the replay of the van robbery again, this time focussing on what the weapon did to the guard in the back. He would have had a hard time hearing most things from outside, so the effect must have been transmitted through the structure of the van itself. That made sense. The weapon’s vibrational energy was transmitted to the inner ear in part by passing through the body itself.

Then he opened the results of the analysis program. He’d written an incredibly complicated algorithm capable of breaking down all sorts of weird and wonderful energy to analyse what was being produced by the vertigo gun. And it wasn’t any of those things.

“Huh.”

The program had automatically run itself three times. Then once more for good measure. The answer it had come up with was so amazingly boring that even it seemed to wonder if it was wrong.

 He scrambled for the office phone and dialled Jerry McGee’s number. His secretary picked up. “Hey… this is Cisco Ramon with… the CCPD. Could you ask him to call me back? And… could you ask him if he knows anything about infrasound?”

The secretary took the message without comment. It probably wasn’t the weirdest thing she’d ever been asked to pass on.

“Infrasound?” Joe repeated from the doorway.

“Hey, Joe. I didn’t know you were coming in today. How… are you?”

Joe took a seat. His movements were still slightly more deliberate than normal. He was still feeling the pain.

“Cisco,” he said. “This is not the worst thing I’ve turned up for duty with. But I don’t want to talk about it. And we don’t have to talk about Friday night either. I didn’t really try to stop my own kids doing what they thought was right, and when I did, I don’t know if I should have.”

“Thanks, Joe,” Cisco muttered. He was still waiting for someone to yell at him, but beyond Iris’ outburst, it hadn’t happened.

“Just don’t be stupid next time,” Joe added. “Be brave, but you’ve gotta be smart too. Use that brain of yours.”

“Okay.” Cisco nodded. “Okay.”

“So, what the hell is infrasound?”

Cisco dug around in his brain for a way to explain it. He didn’t have Barry’s gift for translating technicalities to people without a frame of reference, but if he didn’t try he’d end up sound like Hartley.

“Infrasound is just… sound,” he said. “Only… sound too low for us to hear. Like you know how there’s a whole spectrum of light that the eye can’t see? Sound has that too.”

“Like dog whistles?”

“Yeah. That’s a kind of ultrasound. Infrasound is the other way. But like with dog whistles, there are animals who can hear infrasound.”

Joe nodded. “Like when people’s pets warning them when there’s going to be an earthquake.”

“That’s it. The seismic vibrations going through the ground make the air vibrate too. But like I said, too low for us to pick up. But we can still feel it, and it can still have an effect.”

Joe was silent for a moment. “I’ve heard of some police forces using sound cannons as riot control.”

“That probably would have been ultrasonics,” Cisco said. He saw the question Joe was about to ask. “I don’t know if it’s Hartley. It could be I guess, but like you said, this is already used in riot control. He’s not the only person who knows how to use sound as a weapon.”

“Could you?” Joe asked.

Cisco sighed. “Yeah. If I had to.”

“Then that means you can build something to cancel it out, right?”

“Maybe. The problem is that whoever designed the gun thought of that. The frequency of the pulses aren’t constant, so you can’t know what they are till after they’ve been fired.” He paused, looking at the computer, tapping the table. “But… it might be possible to build something to detect the vibrations in the inner ear and transmit a signal to cancel them out.”

“Better than nothing,” Joe said.

Cisco closed his eyes for a moment. Saw the problem in his head. Variable vibrations in a known medium that had to be detected, measured and then removed. No room for absorption or damping, so it would have to be interference.  He grabbed a notepad.

“Okay… I’ll need a pair of really sensitive microphones, an ultra-low-frequency sound generator and…”

“Joe!”

Cisco glanced up from his scribbles as Crystal came in. She was smiling, and it made the room seem that bit brighter. The lab was starting to feel almost homely.

“This was in your office,” she said, waving a file. “I thought you’d be down here but you want to see this. DNA and facial recognition matches on the two guys from the armoured car.”

“Names?”

“Yeah. Both of them.”

Joe grinned. “About time. Cisco, do you need us to get out of your way?”

Cisco made a last note and then dropped the pad. “No way, I want to see these guys too.”

“Okay,” Crystal said, finding an empty patch of table to open the file. “DNA match first. He was in CODIS. Roscoe Dillon. Thirty years old.” The guy in the picture was the right height, the right narrow, acrobat’s build, with added disorganised brown hair and a slightly feral look in his eyes. “He’s got a long record. Started with purse snatching and burglary, then moved up to armed robbery, assault and attempted murder. He shot a cop in Keystone while fleeing a gas station hold up. Luckily she lived.”

“So when did he get out?”

“That’s the weird part,” Crystal said. “He didn’t. The record from Iron Heights says he was transferred upstate for psychological treatment last October. After that… nothing.”

“I’ll get on to the sanatorium,” Joe said. “What about the other one?”

“Jared Morillo,” Crystal read, and Cisco almost mouthed it along with her. “This came from the DMV. Twenty-seven. Born in Keystone. No record. Gave his address as his parents’ house. When we called they said he hadn’t lived there for five years. Apparently he joined the Marines.”

Joe nodded. “How long do you think it would take us to get his service record?”

“Probably a couple of weeks, depending on how we ask,” Crystal answered. “Of course… I might know someone who knows some people who can do it faster.”

Joe wordlessly handed her the page on Morillo. “Tell her to be careful. We’ll work on Dillon.”

“Right,” Crystal said. “Good luck.”

She left the room. Joe turned back to Cisco. “Where do we start?” Cisco asked.

“I’ll try to find out what happened after he left Iron Heights. Can you… run a search in the database to see if he has anything in common with Morillo. Anything at all. Or anybody else they might both know?”

Cisco nodded. Database searches weren’t the most exciting part of police work, but somebody had to do it and he appreciated Joe asking him rather than dropping it on some junior detective. And he could see Joe really wanted to know why these two were robbing banks together.

“While you run the search,” Joe went on. “Try to figure out how he can do that… spinning thing. And if there’s a way to stop it.”

“Sure.” Cisco looked down at the records. He blinked and read it again just to be on the safe side. “Umm… Joe… that’s weird.”

“What is?”

“Crystal said this guy was arrested for shooting an officer over the bridge? Well, that was three years ago. He started serving his sentence in the fall of twenty-thirteen. He was in Iron Heights when the particle accelerator blew.”

Joe took the record and read it himself. He didn’t ask the obvious question, whether Cisco was sure. Cisco had a pretty good idea of the accident’s blast radius; he’d done some calculations during the early days with Barry, but never showed them to anybody. He’d been relieved to discover that Iron Heights was well outside the area that should have been affected by the explosion and the storm.

“So… what does that mean?” Joe asked.

Cisco shrugged. “I don’t know.”

He honestly didn’t. There were too many theories, beyond simply that he’d got his math wrong. Too many other possibilities. None of them were good.

* * *

Iris flicked on her computer and waited a few minutes for the webcam to connect. Felicity Smoak, all pink and yellow, looked like she couldn’t make up her mind whether she was supposed to be smiling or not. That was understandable; the last time they’d seen each other had been at Barry’s funeral.

“Hey, Iris,” Felicity said softly after a moment.

“Hey, Felicity,” Iris said.

A moment of silence, and then Felicity cleared her throat and looked at something off the screen. Probably one of her others screens. “So… umm… what can the very busy and important Oracle of Star City do for you this evening? You said something about finding a soldier?”

“A Marine,” Iris corrected. “I need you to get into the Department of Defence and find his service record and anything else they have on him. Can you do that?”

Felicity grinned. “As it so happens, I know someone with a literal in. I sweet-talked Lyla into giving me some access to ARGUS. We’ve got half an hour in their system, and they have a back door to the whole government. Which… umm… is something I probably shouldn’t have told you. Give me… two minutes.”

She went to work, looking at a screen to the left of the one she was using to talk to Iris. It was an odd sort of honour watching her in profile; most people only saw the back of Felicity’s head when she worked her magic.

“And… we are in! Now, what’s the name?”

“Jared Morillo,” Iris said, and spelt it.

“Do you have a service number for him?” Felicity asked.

Iris looked through her information. “Umm… I’m not sure…”

A new face appeared on the screen. “It’s his social security number.”

“Oh, thank you,” Iris said. “Hello, Mr Diggle.”

“John,” Diggle said, taking a seat next to Felicity.

“Thank you, John.”

“This,” Felicity explained proudly, “was my second bright idea. I figured that even if we find this guy’s records we’d have a hard time knowing what it meant or how to read it. So I phoned a friend.”

She typed the number Iris gave her and smiled at the result. Diggle sat silently next to her, his eyes carefully skimming over the information.

“What do you want to know, Iris?” he asked.

“Just… give me a summary.”

She readied her notebook as Diggle read the information. “He’s a jarhead. Enlisted five years ago. Went through boot at Camp Pendleton. Deployed to Afghanistan. He’s a lance-corporal and his fitness reports look normal.”

“What’s his… MOS?” Iris asked. “I’m looking for… umm… zero-three-one-seven.”

Diggle cocked his head. “Scout sniper?”

“Oh my god,” Felicity whispered. “You think he might have something to do with Barry?”

Iris shrugged. “We don’t know. But Crystal asked me to check it out.”

“He’s not your guy,” Diggle said. “His speciality is rifleman. No mention of any of the sniper schools.”

“How do you know all of this?” Felicity asked.

“My unit kept a close eye on the competition,” Diggle replied.  

Felicity obviously didn’t know what to make of that. Iris had some idea, but this wasn’t the time to talk about it. “Okay,” she said, making another note. “How did he get out of the Marines?”

“He didn’t.”

Iris said, “What?” at almost the same time as Felicity.

“There’s no discharge form. No record of him leaving the Corps. May I?” Diggle waited for Felicity to pass him the mouse and then made a few clicks. “The last report mentions a court martial. But there’s no record of the trial. I think something’s been removed.”

“We’ll see about that,” Felicity said.

A few minutes of frenetic typing and clicking followed until Felicity hissed something under her breath and sat back. “Okay, I don’t know who did this, but they were really, really good. These records weren’t just deleted or buried, they’re gone. Like they were never there in the first place.”

“Can you find anything?” Iris asked.

“Not with this kind of access,” Felicity replied. “I’ll talk to Lyla about it but… it’s like they saw me coming.”

Iris wondered for a moment if that were possible. If the sniper and Morillo were somehow connected and whoever was behind this had known about Barry, it wasn’t a stretch to imagine they were aware of what was going on in Star City too. Oliver’s activities had drawn far more attention in certain, hidden circles than Barry’s ever had.

“Is there anything else you can tell me?” she asked.

Diggle frowned for a moment. “It doesn’t make sense. Even if these records were erased, there should still be a discharge notice. They would just draw attention if it vanished. Which means that either this guy is a deserter, or he’s still part of the military. But there’s no record of where.”

“I’ve got some other avenues I can check,” Felicity said. “But it’ll take some time and… crap! I totally forgot. I have a thing. An important Oliver thing and I have to go like right now and I’m so sorry and if you need anything just call and I swear –”

The screen went black. Iris waited a moment to see if the connection would reopen, but it didn’t.

“Bye Felicity,” she muttered.

She could have spent the whole night staring at the empty screen, but there were things she had to do. The first was to call Crystal.

“Two guys partnering up while technically missing?” Crystal said when Iris had finished. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

“No,” Iris agreed. “It can’t. Did you find anything to connect them before they vanished?”

“Not yet,” Crystal said. “But I do have something for you. Not something about Morillo, but something interesting that turned up in Cisco’s check on Dillon. A few months before his arrest, he was questioned by the CCPD about another robbery, but he said it couldn’t have been him because he was only in Central City that day to go ice skating with one Lisa Snart.”

Iris felt herself begin to smile. “That is interesting,” she said.


	10. Honour Among Rogues

Snart left the hideout on Tuesday morning and walked four blocks in the opposite direction to the one he’d taken on Saturday. He’d flipped a coin before he left to decide the second part of the route, turned right and walked another two blocks. Then he started searching for a phone, finally settling for the second one he located, on the other side of the street to a multiplex.

He dialled the number again and waited three rings for an answer. “Yeah?”

“It’s me. Got the money?”

“Yeah. Seventy thousand, all mixed small bills, just like they taught me.”

“Tomorrow. The bus station. Put the money in a blue bag. Put the bag in a locker. Put the locker key in an envelope. Put the envelope under the table nearest the door in the station café. Understand?”

“Depot, blue bag, locker, envelope, table nearest the door. Got it.”

“We check the money. We put the jewellery in the locker and return the key. You collect it _after_ we’re gone.”

“Sure. Hey, what about the other offer? The job?”

Snart gave a quick glance around. “Tell me and I’ll think about it.”

“I’ve got a friend of a friend who works for Kord Industries. His department’s in competition with a team at Mercury Labs. He told me they’ve had this breakthrough with some kind of super-seismometer that can do things like hear people’s footsteps from miles away. I don’t know the details, but he heard about what happened at Palmer Tech and said his group would be willing to pay for a look at Mercury’s product.”

“How much?”

“Twenty thousand. But I could probably get some more since he let slip that the contract’s worth millions.”

“Forty thousand. I’m interested.”

The line went silent for a few seconds, then came back. “Sure. Forty. I can get that for you. He says it’s being kept in the sound technologies lab in the main Mercury building on Forty-Third. One of the basement levels. S-3, he said.”

“I need details,” Snart said. “Size. Weight. Description.”

“Umm… I don’t know exactly, but he said it’d fit in a small suitcase. He found out the project number too, if you want it? Zero-four-zero-eight-one.”

“We have a deal,” Snart said.

He didn’t wait for the response. He just put down the phone and walked away. He took his time heading back to the club, using the walk to start planning the job and to wonder exactly how much of what he’d been told was a lie.

* * *

Caitlin had never been much of a morning person, and sleeping on a camp bed on a converted office didn’t help that. It also reminded her too much of days long gone; living at STAR Labs because she couldn’t stand the thought of her apartment and the lingering smell of Ronnie’s aftershave, and being shaken awoke by Cisco with that familiar expression of sad concern. Now all she had for a morning routine was making sure that she avoided the other Rogues on her way to the employee bathroom. Rory slept late. Lisa sometimes did and sometimes didn’t. Snart seemed to get up as early as he could, and she wasn’t certain that he’d slept at all last night.

Something was happening, and it had started after he returned from his call. Snart hadn’t told her what it was and she hadn’t asked. On her way out of the club she heard a rustle of paper from the private gallery where he worked, and that almost confirmed it. Whatever job the anonymous fence had offered, Snart had taken it.

First things first, though. She needed coffee, and not just to help her wake up. There were seven coffee shops in a six block radius of the club. Central City really did love the stuff. All of them had Wi-Fi, which right now was more important than the blend.

She caught the tail end of the morning rush and had to queue for three minutes before she could order her large vanilla latte. That gave her enough time to access the shop’s network from her tablet.

The email account she logged into was one of the modern answers to an old-fashioned dead-drop. It was an account set up by someone who – to the untrained eye – had no connection at all to Caitlin or anyone she knew. In fact, it was a casual acquaintance of Linda Park who had opened the account under an obviously-disguised username in order to give it the appearance of simply being somewhere to hide emails they didn’t want anyone else to know they were receiving. The internet is littered with such accounts; Iris had explained that this had become a standard trick for reporters to allow them to communicate with more confidential sources. As she put it, it beat meeting in a parking garage at three in the morning.

There was only one new message, from a similarly faked sender at Iris’ end. Caitlin downloaded it but didn’t read it. Instead she took her coffee and walked back to the club, only opening the email when she was alone in her room with her bag wedged against the door in order to give her a few seconds warning if someone tried to come in.

Iris was a born journalist. She knew exactly how to communicate information in the smallest number of words necessary.

_The Top is Roscoe Dillon, petty robber. His partner is Jared Morillo, USMC. We don’t know how they met. Dillon used Lisa Snart as an alibi in Keystone._

Caitlin’s homework was implied. Find out what Lisa knew about Dillon. Find out if she’d ever heard of Jared Morillo. Find out if Dillon had contacted her again recently. Three easy questions that Caitlin had no idea how to go about asking.

She started thinking, but only had a few minutes before there was a crash and a shout from downstairs. “No way, Len!”

It was Rory. Caitlin grabbed her bag and headed downstairs, wondering how much heat you had to absorb to stop a fire.

Rory and Snart were standing beside the bar. It didn’t look like either of them were armed but that wasn’t much of a comfort. Lisa was standing at the bottom of the stairs, watching like she had front row seats for a boxing match. She caught Caitlin’s shoulder and brought her to a stop.

“What’s the matter, Mick?” Snart asked. “Tired of making money?”

“I don’t like this,” Rory responded. “We get a new fence out of nowhere, and now he’s _hiring_ us? How do you know he’s not a fucking cop? How do you know what he wants?”

“I don’t,” Snart said. “I know he’s not a cop. I don’t know what he wants. But I want to find out, and unless we do this, we won’t.”

Rory sneered. “And what about her?” He pointed at Caitlin. “You really expect me to believe her friends threw her out?”

“Smarter than he looks, isn’t he?” Lisa said casually.

Caitlin stayed very still, trying not to make any movements that could be read as threatening, all the while working out how quickly she could reach the door. But before she had a chance, Rory turned back to Snart.

“You’d better know what you’re doing,” he hissed. “If we get stung because you’re playing some stupid game, I’ll get out even if I have to go through you to do it. Understand?”

“I know what I’m doing, Mick.”

“We’ll see.”

Rory reached behind the bar, grabbed a bottle and stalked away. Snart didn’t take his eyes off him until he’d disappeared through the door.

“Well, that took longer than I expected,” Lisa said. “What set him off?”

“I told him about the next job,” Snart replied.

“Well?”

“Later,” Snart said. “First I need you to do a pickup from the bus station. Seventeen-and-a-half thousand dollars will calm Mick down.”

Lisa grinned. “Sure. Do you want to come, Katie?”

“Sure,” Caitlin said.

Lisa looked almost surprised she’d accepted. “Okay. Well, let’s find you something a little less… _you_ to wear.”

What this turned out to mean was a very female type of urban camouflage. Caitlin put her hair into a tight plait while Lisa made hers into a messy ponytail. They simplified their makeup and put on loose t-shirts from the local colleges and dull slacks. Caitlin remembered when Louise had spent most of her time dressed this way; it made them both look like messy grad students.

Snart explained the mechanics of the drop-off and checked they both understood. One of the downsides to the Rogues’ fame was that it made it a lot harder to ‘do business’ as he put it. Then Lisa led the way to another supposedly borrowed car, this one a convertible BMW, and drove towards the bus station.

“So why did you want to come along?” Lisa asked. “Don’t tell me you’re getting a taste for the lifestyle.”

Caitlin decided to opt for honesty. Whether or not Snart had told his sister the truth about Caitlin’s ‘recruitment’, even Rory had worked out there was more to it.

“I wanted to ask you something,” Caitlin said. “I was wondering if you knew someone called Roscoe Dillon.”

Lisa’s smile flickered. “That’s quite a personal question, Katie. Why do you want to know?”

“Just something I read in the paper. There might be a connection between him and the metahuman bank robbers.”

A block passed before Lisa said, “Okay, Katie, I’ll bite. But you’ve got to tell me something first.”

Caitlin went stiff. “Like what?”

“If we’re going to have a girl talk, we should talk. So tell me something about you. Something that Iris knows but you never told Cisco.”

That was a longer list than some would think. She’d spent a lot of time with Cisco, he probably knew her better than anyone else, but here were parts of her life she’d talked around, just like he had. They’d both inferred things from the gaps, but there were still truths they had yet to tell each other.

“I became a doctor because of my mom,” Caitlin said. “My parents were both lawyers. My dad was a prosecutor and he spent a lot of time at the office. But my mom worked a hospital, giving legal advice to doctors, so she was home more. Maybe if I’d been a boy, I would have asked my dad more about the criminals he helped put in jail, but I talked to my mom instead. She told me about what happened at the hospital, all day every day, and she never lied to me that the doctors could do everything, because they couldn’t. Things sometimes went wrong, and that’s why they needed her help.

“I guess I never thought there was anything magical about doctors, because my mom knew so many. They were just like everybody else. When I was thirteen, I started asking my mom how they knew what to do, and she told me about medical journals and books and research. So I asked how they knew what to put in there. She didn’t know, but I kept asking, of course. So when I was fourteen, she took me into the hospital and I talked to some of the doctors doing research there. And they told me that while they were practicing, they could make a difference to a few patients at a time, but by doing research they could help hundreds or thousands of people in and out of hospital. They also told me about a nineteenth century scientist called John Snow, who stopped a cholera epidemic in London by tracing it all back to contamination from a single water pump. I’ve never forgotten that story. My mom helped teach me that you can save lives with science and dots on a map.”

Lisa had kept her eyes on the road while she listened, glancing across at Caitlin from time to time. She drove in silence for a few more minutes. Neither Snart had ever mentioned their mother. If they had been friends, Caitlin would have asked. But she and Lisa weren’t friends.

“Bus station,” Lisa said. “Follow my lead, Katie.”

There was a touch of command there, and more than a hint of her brother. Lisa grabbed the bag of stolen goods and strolled towards the station. Caitlin slipped on her sunglasses and followed. Unlike the train station, the terminus for Central City’s Greyhounds was far from its most architecturally inspired structure, a steel-reinforced brick of a building dating from when the city had still been in decline.

As they approached the entrance, Lisa suddenly started a conversation with Caitlin about a non-existent sorority sister of theirs who’d managed to get herself a beachside condo in Coast City and how nice it was that she was letting them stay there for a week during the vacation. She checked the departure boards for the coast, making a note of the times, complaining about how little they were paid by the jobs they didn’t have and that since nothing was left from the rent they didn’t share, they couldn’t afford a car. Caitlin couldn’t tell if this had been prepared in advance or if Lisa was just making it up as she went along; she just nodded and tried to sound encouraging when the other woman paused for breath.

After a few minutes of this, Lisa proposed they continue their discussion over coffee. They found the small café easily enough and Caitlin paid while Lisa located the table her brother had told them about. As she arrived with the drinks, Caitlin gave Lisa a careful, enquiring look. Lisa caught it, and her smile changed for a fraction of a second as she nodded.

Lisa stopped talking to drink, probably taking her time because the coffee was both too hot and too acidic to enjoy. Then she reached into her handbag to grab one of her three phones. As she did so, Caitlin saw Lisa slip something from under the table into the bag’s side pocket; but even though she’d been waiting for it, the movement was almost too quick to see.

“They really overheat this stuff don’t they?” Lisa said, gesturing to the coffee. “Bad for this time of year. Tell you what, while it’s cooling, I’ll go check on the lockers. Make sure they’ve got enough space for this.”

She casually lifted the bag and walked out into the main station. There was enough of a crowd that Caitlin couldn’t track her. Instead, she watched the people, trying to seem casual, trying not to tense up. She checked the faces in case she’d seen any of them before, or in case anyone was paying too much attention to her or the baggage lockers. She also found herself looking for cops or anyone in uniform, tracking them as they moved through the station.

Minutes passed, and Caitlin wondered what she’d do if something went wrong, planned an escape strategy and mentally kicked herself for not thinking of this earlier. Someone might recognise her – she’d done her best to hide her odd pallor under makeup but it wasn’t perfect – or Lisa. Being a wanted woman was incredibly stressful. She wondered how Lisa always seemed so calm. Maybe she enjoyed it. Did they any of the Rogues? Or did they just treat it as a hazard of the career they’d chosen?

She got so worried about the crowd and the possibilities that she didn’t even see Lisa until she dropped into her seat again and set the bag down next to them. It was the same colour as she one she’d left with, but a different manufacturer.

“Did you do it?” Caitlin asked, trying to sound casual.

Lisa smiled. “No problem.”

They finished their coffee. Lisa made another lightning-fast movement to replace the locker key, and then they walked out of the station without looking back. Lisa threw the bag into the car and Caitlin wondered if it was better or worse to be caught with tens of thousands of dollars in cash or the stolen goods that this had paid for. Probably largely immaterial, she decided, as the police would identify them both quickly enough either way.

“Thanks for watching my back,” Lisa said.

“I didn’t do anything,” Caitlin responded.

Lisa smiled. “No. But you would have. So, a promise is a promise. What do you want to know about Roscoe?”

“How well do you know him?”

“Past tense, Katie. I haven’t seen him for years. Roscoe was… well, if a girl like me wants to date a bad boy to get at her brother, she’s got to try pretty hard. We hung out. On and off. For about a year. You know how it is when your work keeps you busy and you have to suddenly leave town to dodge the cops. We had fun. He was the only guy I knew who’d come ice skating with me. I let him use me as an alibi a couple of times and he returned the favour. Then Len found out, _of course_. He went to see Roscoe and told him he was _amateurish_ and _unpredictable_ and that if he ever saw me again, he’d kill him. Not the first time he’s done that. Then Roscoe had to screw up robbing a gas station and shoot a cop trying to get away. He proved Len right. That’s what really pissed me off.”

“And you haven’t seen him since?”

“Sorry, Katie. They shipped him upstate, and I can’t exactly go visit him, can I? Besides, if I wrote long, heartfelt and naughty letters to every guy I knew in prison, I wouldn’t have any time left to get myself in trouble.”

“Did he ever mention a friend called Jared Morillo?”

Lisa gave her another considerate look. “Don’t think so. You want to know anymore it’s gonna cost you another story.”

“Thanks you, Lisa,” Caitlin mumbled.

She spent the rest of the drive back filtering what Lisa had told her, selecting the key points and trying to decide when she could risk passing them back to Iris and the others.

Snart was waiting for them by the club door. “Any problems?”

Caitlin shook her head.

“Did either of you see anything strange?”

“What’s strange in this town?” Lisa asked.

“I don’t know,” Snart said. “Hide the money then come to the office.”

“Sure, Len.”

“Doctor Snow.” Snart turned to Caitlin. “Would you happen to have any detailed knowledge of the Mercury Labs building on Forty-Third Street?”

“Not really. I went there for an interview once. A long time ago. Why?”

Snart nodded, as if that was what he’d expected to hear. “In a moment.”

They waited for Lisa to return, then Snart led them up to the private room. There were more plans on the desk. Rory was looking over them. He seemed even less happy than he had done earlier, but that didn’t stop Lisa from peering over his shoulder.

“We’re breaking into Mercury Labs?” she said.

“Yes,” Snart replied. “Tonight.”

Lisa gave him a sharp look. “Really?”

Caitlin guessed that Snart had been planning this job ever since he’d come back from the phone call the day before. Even so, for him, this was almost impulsive. No wonder Rory wasn’t happy.

“Why?” she asked.

“Mick’s right,” Snart told her. “Our new contact is up to something. I want to find out what it is, so we have to do the job. But we don’t have to be predictable. He’ll be expecting me to take a week for planning. He doesn’t know I already figured out how to break into Mercury Labs. Just in case.”

Spare parts, Caitlin realised. The Rogues might be able to maintain their weapons by themselves, but the components they needed were very hard to find. Snart had probably formulated contingency plans for every major science lab in the state.

“So what’s the plan, Lenny?” Lisa asked.

“The prize is an experimental seismometer on sub-level three. City electrical tunnels pass close to the east wall of sub-level one. There’s an access point a block away. Here. We cut through the wall and use the stairs.  In and out in no more than five minutes.”

There were no objections, even from Rory. Caitlin wondered if Snart had talked him into accepting the plan while she’d been gone. On the other hand, nobody said it sounded easy.

* * *

They drove out in a large van that Snart had managed to acquire. In the daylight, it didn’t look enough like a maintenance vehicle to convince anyone, but as night fell, the disguise became more effective. In the dark, all most people see is shapes, they seldom waste time trying to piece together details. Lisa drove with Caitlin beside her. Snart and Rory stayed in the back.

They parked the van almost on top of the access point. There was no need to put out any faked signs, that would just have attracted attention. Snart joined them in the front, watching for any suspicious activity. Mercury Labs was quiet, a dark monolith in the night above them broken by a few patches of light where someone was working late.

 Three minutes passed and then Snart said, “Let’s go.”

He and Rory got out of the van and pried open the entrance hatch while Caitlin and Lisa pulled on their safety helmets and gloves. Rather than use the ladder, Snart and Rory each took one of Lisa’s arms and lowered her into the tunnel. Her headlamp flickered in the darkness below, turned one way and then the other.

“All clear, boys,” she called. “Come on down.”

They lowered Caitlin down, and it felt like the darkness was swallowing her. She groped for the lamp switch and managed to illuminate Lisa’s back. There was a scuffling behind her and she spun, only to realise it was the sound of Snart and Rory clambering down the ladder.

“Move,” Snart said.

Lisa started down the tunnel. There was only enough room to move in single file. Most of the space was taken up by the conduits protecting bundles of electrical wiring. The air didn’t have much of a smell, but it was unpleasantly damp, warm and still. Caitlin thought she could hear the power humming to itself in the darkness. The only other sound was the scrape of their footsteps and the whisper of Lisa counting the distance under her breath. Caitlin kept her light aimed at the other woman’s back, unable to see much of the tunnel beyond her. On the street, walking a block only took a few minutes, but down here the journey stretched into an eternity as they moved slowly and carefully in a little bubble of illumination through a world of shifting shadows.

“Here,” Lisa hissed, her voice sounding very loud.

At the place where she’d stopped, the conduits split, disappearing up and down to provide power to the lab building. They left a gap just smaller than a doorway. Snart looked down enough to make a few adjustments to the Cold Gun and then aimed it at the wall.

“Cover your eyes.”

Caitlin squeezed her eyes shut and turned away for good measure. She still felt the gun’s painfully bright light through her eyelids and sensed the temperature drop as the beam struck the wall. When it stopped and she opened them again, she saw Snart had coated the exposed section in ice, which he and Rory proceeded to attack with their crowbars. It only took a few blows before the frozen concrete gave way, and in less than a minute they had a gap big enough for even Rory to fit through.

Snart held up his hand, waiting, and then nodded and scrambled through the hole. Lisa was close behind him. Caitlin followed her and took a breath of unmistakably purified laboratory air as she slipped into the dull, dim corridor which was none the less a relief after the confines of the tunnel.

They headed to the left, Lisa casually firing at anything that looked like a security monitor along the way. A few steps took them to the fire stairs, which were of course unlocked. Two levels down brought them to another deserted corridor that felt pleasantly familiar to Caitlin even though she’d never been there before. She hadn’t realised how much she missed STAR Labs until now.

But she didn’t have time to be homesick. Snart was moving carefully but quickly towards the lab area. He only paused when he saw the sign above the main door: ‘Sonic Technologies’. Then he ordered Rory to burn through the lock. Snart’s boot finished the Heat Gun’s work and they hurried into the silent lab.

There were a few flashes of gold as Lisa removed the security cameras and then Snart called, “Storage?”

Caitlin looked around. The lab wasn’t as open as the one in Palmer Tech had been, and it was hard to see past the scattered equipment, but there was another door at the far corner with a trolley beside it.

“Try there!”

Snart reached the door a few seconds later. He pulled the handle and almost lost his balance. It was unlocked. There was a long row of storage lockers on the other side. Snart called out the project number and they all spread out, eyes flickering over the labels.

It was Rory who found the right one. “Here!”

He took a step back as the others hurried over. Snart checked the code on the door and then pulled it open. And he almost literally froze.

“Abort,” he said, in a tone Caitlin had never heard before. “We’re leaving.”

Caitlin leaned around the edge of the door. The locker was empty.

“You sure, Len?” Lisa asked. “He might just have got the label wrong.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Snart responded. “Let’s go.”

Caitlin looked at him, then back at the locker. Even in the dim light, she thought she could see some smudges around the handle.

“Wait,” she said. “If someone else took it, I might be able to find out who.”

Snart gave her a careful look. “One minute, Doctor Snow. Mick, watch the door.”

Caitlin dug in her bag. If two years of friendship with a forensic scientist had taught her anything, it was that she should always be ready to take samples. She did her best, scraping and swabbing around the door handle and the places inside the locker that someone might have touched if they were trying to remove its contents.

“Time’s up,” Snart interrupted, before she was finished. “Go.”

She didn’t argue. She shoved the samples back into her bag and followed him. This time, Rory led the way while Snart brought up the rear. They didn’t quite run, but moved as quickly as possible towards the exit. Caitlin desperately hoped none of the staff appeared in the other direction, she knew Rory wouldn’t hesitate to shoot.

They reached the hole in the wall. There was a single security guard examining it, his hand on his radio. Luckily for him, Rory didn’t see him until they were almost on top of each other, and rather than use his weapon, Rory struck a single, savage blow without slowing. Lisa casually skipped over the body and jumped into the hole. Caitlin forced herself to follow, trying to convince herself that the guard wouldn’t be left there for long. Lisa helped her through and they nearly jogged down the tunnel with the men close behind.

Lisa threw herself onto the ladder and Caitlin waited at the bottom, her heart in her throat as the other woman peered into the yellow-lit night above.

“Clear!”

Caitlin went up and took a relieved breath of the warm city air. Then she dragged herself the rest of the way out of the hatch and upright. Lisa was poised beside the van, her eyes scanning the street. She barely stopped as she thrust the keys to Caitlin.

“Start it.”

Caitlin took the keys without a word and jumped into the vehicle. She started it and clipped her seatbelt in place, watching the road, listening for the sirens. She filched as Snart pulled the back door open and he and Rory cambered in. A second later, Lisa leapt into the passenger side and Caitlin hit the gas without waiting to be told.

She turned past the lab building and headed north. She kept to the speed limit, stopped at all the lights and used her indicators whenever Snart called for a turning. They got a dozen blocks from the lab and then doubled back for three before changing direction again.

“Is anyone following us?” Caitlin asked.

Lisa leaned over and gave the mirrors another check. She started to relax. “No, we’re good. You make a hell of a getaway driver, Katie.”

Caitlin took a breath. She looked down at the wheel and realised she was holding it hard enough that her knuckles were white. The tension was making her feel sick. She ignored it, willed her grip to loosen, and concentrated on driving.

“What was that, Len?” Rory demanded from the back. “What’s going on?”

Snart spoke for the first time since they’d left Mercury Labs. “Someone’s fucking with us,” he said.

“Of course he is,” Rory responded. “That thing wasn’t a seismometer and it was gone before we got there. We were set up. So what are we going to do about it?”

“Nothing,” Snart said.

“What?” That was almost a roar. “You’re just going to let him get away with this?”

“We do nothing,” Snart repeated, his voice cutting through all other noise in the van, “until we’ve had time to think. Then we make him sorry.”

Caitlin risked a look behind her. Rory was staring hard at Snart, but the promise of revenge seemed to have calmed him a little. She looked over at Lisa, who was oddly silent, seemingly doing some thinking of her own. Caitlin went back to watching the road, turning the van back towards the club. No one objected.

She stopped outside, turned the engine off and had to call on all her self-control not to slump at the wheel. Instead, she got out, walked around the van and threw the keys to Lisa, who caught them and grinned.

“You want a drink, Katie?”

“No. Thank you.”

She did, but not with the Rogues. And not even alcohol. Just a bottle of soda, half a pineapple pizza and the silliest movie Cisco could find.

What she had instead was a few hours of improvised cytology until she could shower and sleep.

“Do you have a microscope?” she asked Snart.

It turned out that he did. The equipment wasn’t really suitable for biology, but she imagined he used it to monitor the guns and perhaps even check some of the things he stole. She managed to put together a few other supplies from around the bar as well.

“When you find something,” Snart said, “tell me.”

Caitlin didn’t bother replying. She went up to her room, barricaded the door as best she could, pulled off her disguise and set out the equipment. She picked one of the swabs that she’d taken from locker’s handle and started from there. Skin cells. So whoever they were looking for hadn’t been that careful or they’d been in a hurry. She couldn’t do a detailed analysis without a proper lab, but she would see what she could improvise…

Her thoughts came to a stop. She looked up from the microscope, blinked, adjusted it, and looked again. The image was unclear, but unmistakable. She knew exactly where she’d seen that pattern of uncanny cellular activity before.

Just to be sure, she turned off the lamp aimed at the microscope and looked into the eyepiece again. The cells on the slide were still.

“Peek-A-Boo,” she whispered.


	11. SNAFU

Joe sat in Singh’s office, watching his boss on the phone. Singh wasn’t speaking, he was listening to a muffled voice that Joe couldn’t make out, but his expression had been getting darker for the last five minutes and his grip on the receiver was tightening.

Joe had spent the last few days on the telephone, calling Iron Heights, the upstate sanatorium, the US Marine Corps and Iron Heights again. Sitting in a chair with his chest aching, trying to speak calmly down the phone probably wasn’t the best use of his time, but as last night had been the first one he’d slept through without the pain waking him up, he’d been too tired to do much else. At least when he’d reported his results – or lack of them – to his boss, Singh had started trying. Joe knew he’d be able to get more information, but it didn’t look as though he liked what he was hearing.

Singh didn’t quite slam the phone down, but it had obviously taken a lot of self-control not to. “Son of a bitch,” he hissed.

Joe thought the most sensible thing to say was nothing.

“Warden Wolfe,” Singh went on, “asked me to give you a message. He says he would appreciate it if we did not consume any more of his guards’ valuable time chasing what’s clearly a minor clerical error.”

Joe went on saying nothing.

“On the other hand, he promises that he will have someone triple check the records room for Roscoe Dillon’s transfer papers. He’s not going to find them is he?”

“I don’t think so, captain.”

“God damn it,” Singh said. “And you’re sure the sanatorium has no record of Dillon arriving?”

“Yes, captain. No record of the transfer being authorised at their end.”

“So somebody manages to organise a phony transfer of a prisoner out of Iron Heights. And then all the paperwork telling us the shrink’s name and case goes missing.”

Joe nodded. All that remained was the information stored in the electronic record, and that wasn’t much. The date and time of the transfer and the scribbled mess of a signature made on the day itself. Cisco was looking into that, more as a way to pass the time than out of any hope he’d actually find something.

“Why’s Wolfe stonewalling?” Joe asked.

Singh made another disgusted sound. “Because people lose paperwork all the time. Just one of those things. But if it starts looking like it might have been lost on purpose, then that means an inquiry, and that means his ass. I’m guessing he’ll ask his own questions, and when he finds out who’s responsible he’ll put them on boiler room duty till they forget what daylight looks like. But we’ll never hear about it. You know as well as I do that what happens in that place stays there.”

“Thank you for trying, captain,” Joe said.

Singh gave him a dismissive wave. “What else have you got?”

“We’re tracking known associates, family and old friends,” Joe said. “He’s always worked alone before, but we have a… contact digging into his personal life. So far, nothing.”

“And the other one?”

“The same. Crystal’s trying to make contact with his old unit, but they’re stationed in Okinawa right now so she’s having some trouble. Nobody’s seen him over here, but we’re canvassing for both of them. Quietly.”

Singh nodded. “Has any of the stolen money turned up yet?”

“No. Nothing from the banks, and our informants are real quiet about it.”

“Strange. Steal that much money and we haven’t seen a penny come back.”

“I know, captain. I don’t like it. Unless they know the bills are marked.”

Singh looked like he put a lot of thought into his next question. “Anything to connect them to Allen?”

Joe put just as much thought into his answer. “I don’t know, captain. I haven’t been told.”

Sympathy showed on Singh’s face for a moment. He’d offered to send Joe back on medical leave until the bruising healed, but they both knew the real reason. It was one of the hardest questions Joe had ever stopped himself from asking, but Crystal’s investigation had to be seen to be objective, no matter what.

“Okay, Joe,” Singh said. “Stay on the robberies. Whatever you need to do to find these guys, I’ll make sure you have it. Now get it done.”

“Yes, captain.”

Joe left the office and headed downstairs, downing another pair of painkillers on the way. He was hoping to find Cisco hard at work, perhaps analysing Dillon’s abilities or refining the method for counteracting Morillo’s weapon. Instead, he found him chewing on Red Vines and staring a wall-sized projection of the signature.

“Cisco, there’d better be a reason for this.”

Cisco didn’t turn around. “You ever see Caitlin’s handwriting? It’s exactly like all the jokes they tell about doctors. This kinda reminded me of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well… it’s like… if you were going to sign something in front of a bunch of prison guards, would you try and fake a signature? Because it would look real suspicious if you couldn’t do it right.”

“So… you think whoever signed Dillon’s release, this is their real signature.”

Cisco shrugged. “Maybe. I asked one of the graphologists from upstairs about it. She said it looked real. They can sorta tell when someone’s faking, unless they’re really good at it. So I asked her what she thought it was and... she made me promise not to hold her to it, but she said she thought she could see an ‘E’ there… and a ‘C’ there… you see?”

Joe looked into the disorganised swirls. He certainly thought he could see the capital letters, but then again he imagined you could see anything if you looked into the pattern long enough. It was already starting to shift as his brain tilted in search of some sense.

“Maybe. But even if their initials are EC, that doesn’t narrow it down, does it?”

“I guess not,” Cisco muttered.

Joe patted his shoulder. Cisco had a cop’s tenacity, he’d give him that. “Good work though.”

“Thanks, Joe.”

Joe heard the steps outside and the patient, regular knock. The door opened before he’d had a chance to call. The officer was clearly old enough to resent being given messenger duty.  

“Detective. There’s been another robbery.”

“Dillon and Morello?”

“No detective. Leonard Snart.”

Joe looked down at Cisco, and they both said, “Again?”

* * *

Cisco had never been invited to the Mercury Labs hub on 43rd. He couldn’t really blame them. Tina McGee probably considered him too much a prodigy of the late Harrison Wells and even though Barry had managed to mend some fences there, Cisco didn’t know how much the good will would extend to the rest of the team. Not to mention every time their paths seemed to cross, mad science was involved somehow.

Mercury had pretty much had the monopoly on that – and science research in general – in Central City since the accelerator explosion. With the rise of rogues in the city – a popular term for the not-quite-metahuman-but-still-weird criminals that was spelt with a small ‘r’ – that made the whole institution a target. Although, until now, the Rogues – Snart’s crew had earned that capital ‘R’ in the public’s mind – had left it alone.

Cisco was snapped out of his considerations of CCPN’s formatting decisions by their arrival at the building’s executive parking lot. Tina McGee herself was standing by the entrance next to yet another persecuted-looking patrol officer. From Joe’s expression, Cisco guessed he’d been hoping that the lab manager would at least let him examine the crime scene before she insisted on speaking to him.

“Good morning, Detective West.”

“Doctor McGee. This is Cisco Ramon. He’s a consultant with the CCPD.”

McGee nodded. “Yes, I’d heard. My husband mentioned some of the work you’ve been doing. I believe Harrison would have been very impressed.” She turned back to Joe. “And… may I say how sorry I was to hear about Mr Allen’s passing? He was a very promising young man.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Joe murmured.

Cisco couldn’t say anything at all. He stared at his shoes.

“Now,” Doctor McGee went on, “I came to tell you that the labs are at your disposal. Your colleagues have been making a start on this, but please ask any questions you like. You can have access to any areas you wish, but I would ask that you not discuss anything you see outside official channels. I’m sure you understand.”

She and the officer led them into the building and down to the first sub-level. It was easy to see why the officers had assumed it was Snart. There was a giant hole in one of the walls surrounded by half-defrosted debris and the familiar puddle of melted ice. The whole corridor smelt of whatever stale air had drifted through the hole, and there were a pair of CSIs suiting up to go and investigate. Neither of them looked particularly happy.

“Electrical tunnel, detective,” one of them said.

“Good luck, guys,” Cisco replied.

“What happened?” Joe asked.

“Security cameras went out,” the officer explained. “Ten minutes later one of the investigating guards finds this. He’s half way through making a radio call when someone hits him. Positively identified the guy as Mick Rory but couldn’t be certain about the others. By the time someone else finds him, they’ve gone.”

Cisco wandered a little way down the corridor. At the entrance to the first staircase, exactly where he’d expected it, there was a CCTV camera covered in gold.

“Joe, check this out. Must have been Lisa.”

Joe joined him and looked at the camera. He turned back to the officer. “Any others like that?”

“Sure. A whole bunch on sublevel three. That’s how we knew where they went.”

“What is it?” Cisco asked.

“Why shut off the cameras and then shoot them anyway?” Joe said, half to himself.

Cisco shrugged. “I don’t know. Target practice? A signature maybe? So we knew it was them.”

Joe indicated over his shoulder at the hole. “That’s all the signature they’d need. Besides… if Snart made the hole, Rory hit the guard, and Lisa shot the cameras, then the only person to turn them off would have been… Killer Frost. So how did she get in and out?”

“And what did they come here for anyway?” Cisco asked.

In answer to that question, Doctor McGee led them down two more flights of stairs into the sonic technologies lab. He glanced at Joe as they went in. This was too weird to be a coincidence.

“The only item found missing _so far_ ,” Doctor McGee said, “is a prototype noise cancelling machine. As you may know, ambient noise, particularly in a city environment, has been demonstrated to have negative health effects. To decrease that, some companies have begun to produce so-called white noise machines, to play soothing sounds such as wind or whale song to block this out. This prototype takes the next step.”

“You scan for the ambient noise and generate frequencies specifically to block it out, right?” Cisco exclaimed.

“That’s correct.”

“Cisco.” Joe gestured to the corner of the lab, moving out of earshot of Doctor McGee in a way that only seemed to make her curious. “You said you were working on something to beat Morillo’s gun.”

“Yeah, I’m still looking at a couple of alternatives,” Cisco replied.

“Could you have done it with that machine?”

Cisco shrugged. “I don’t know. It depends on how it worked and how much power I needed. I still need more info on the gun.” Joe gave him an impatient look. “But it would have made a great start.”

He didn’t need to ask what Joe was thinking. Five minutes alone with an operational prototype would have given him a lot on how to counteract the vertigo gun’s effects and maybe even stop it altogether. And now it had vanished.

Joe took another minute to think before he went back to Doctor McGee. “We think Leonard Snart may have been hired to steal this particular prototype.”

“I imagine that’s possible,” Doctor McGee replied. “The Palmer Technologies robbery was also somewhat out of character for his group, from what I’ve read. Do you suspect some kind of industrial espionage campaign?”

“We… don’t know yet,” Joe said. “We’ll look into all the alternatives.”

Cisco knew by now that was a standard cop line for when they were asked something they didn’t want to answer. Going by her expression, Doctor McGee knew it too.

“We take confidentiality very seriously here, Detective West. The team leader assures me that no one on the team told anyone about their work.”

“Is there any other way someone could have found out?” Joe asked.

“Not without some sort of data breach,” Doctor McGee said. “And our development files are very heavily firewalled. Although… now that I think about it… there was… something.”

“What?” Cisco asked, and caught an irritated look from Joe. Apparently he still had a lot to learn about questioning people.

Fortunately, if Doctor McGee had any problems, she didn’t show it. “As I said, this project concerns cancelling out noise which has negative health effects. Well, obviously the team needed to be able to generate this sound under controlled conditions, so an early stage of the project was to build a machine which did just that.”

“A machine to make people sick using sound?” Joe asked.

“Of course. How else were we supposed to discover how to counteract it? We placed particular importance in reliably generating infrasound, which is –”

“Sound too low for people to hear,” Joe muttered, apparently breaking his own rule out of shear surprise.

“Infrasound is generated by a large number of man-made devices,” Doctor McGee went on. “And there is research investigating how it affects health. So the team places particular importance in being able to cancel it out, which is not something other white noise generators do. It was part of the basis on which their funding was approved. That may have been how… I’m sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“Take your time,” Joe said.

“Around eight months ago, a man approached me from the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency. DARPA.”

“DARPA” Joe repeated.

Cisco flinched. “They make weird weapons for the government.”

“Right…” Joe muttered.

Doctor McGee looked back and forth between them. If her husband had told her anything at all about Morillo’s gun, she’d be able to put the pieces together herself.

“This man said he had information that we were working with infrasound. He asked if we would be interested on bidding on a contract to build a generator for military applications. I said no. Mercury Labs does not make weapons.”

“Do you remember his name, doctor?” Joe asked.

“I’m afraid not. But I can check my visitor logs if you give me a moment.”

“Please,” Joe said.

Cisco could see the tension in him now. Joe had never been like the movie cliché of a detective; he didn’t do the dramatic eureka moments. But when he thought he had a good lead, Cisco could see it in his eyes, something bright that reminded him a little of Wells. Cisco had noticed it first in Iris, but her father did it too, although he was a lot more low-key. So low that a lot of people seemed to miss it altogether.

“What are you thinking, Joe?” Cisco asked as Doctor McGee went to work on one of the lab computers.

“I’m thinking we know where Morillo got his gun from,” Joe replied. “Maybe even how he found out about it. Now we just need to know why he has it.”

There were a lot more questions than that, like how Morillo and Dillon had met, and where Dillon got his powers from. But Cisco was starting to understand the similarities between police work and science: you couldn’t solve a problem at once, you had to do it one answered question at a time.

And then Doctor McGee scribbled something on a Post-It and handed Joe another answer. “I usually keep more information on my visitors, Detective West, but I’m afraid in this case all I have is his name. Doctor Edward Clariss.”

* * *

Joe could feel Cisco practically vibrating with excitement on the drive back to the precinct. Joe still wasn’t sure the kid had got his head around the idea that you couldn’t just shout “Elementary!” and declare the case solved. Young cops had the same problem. Just because a lead looked good, didn’t mean it was good. Even so, Joe was having some trouble refuting Cisco’s argument, because this was a hell of a coincidence.

“Come on, Joe. Edward Clariss. EC. It’s got to be him.”

“Or it could be Ellie Carmichael. And she’s actually a shrink.”

“Yeah, but she works for the precinct not the government. Why would she release a guy like Dillon?”

“Why would the government do it, Cisco?” Joe responded. “We have evidence that this guy Clariss _might be_ connected to Morillo and his gun, but we don’t know he’s connected to Dillon. Maybe the two of them have a safe house in common. Hell, they could just have met in a bar.”

“Then why’d you call Crystal?” Cisco shot back.

Joe sighed. “Because it might be unlikely, but it _is_ possible. That doesn’t mean you’re right, though.”

Crystal met them in Joe’s office. Both she and Cisco waited patiently for him to take another round of painkillers, then Joe got to work on the computer.

“Edward Clariss, MD, PhD. Thirty-one years old. Lives in Central City. No convictions, no record unless it’s been sealed. Never joined the military. What’s his PhD in, Cisco?”

Since people with high degrees make it very easy for people to find out what they’re qualified in, Cisco was already at work on his cell phone. “Huh,” he said. “Bioengineering. Just like Caitlin. He went to Stanford, though. That’s weird…”

“What?”

“He hasn’t published anything in… like… three years. Okay, neither’s Caitlin, but we all know the extenuating circumstances there. That probably means private sector and deep confidentiality. What does the record say he does?”

“Consultant,” Crystal replied. “That’s all.”

“Come on, Cisco,” Joe said. “Let’s go ask him what that means.”

* * *

Whatever Clariss did for a living, it clearly paid well. He rented an apartment in a block on the sunnier side of downtown, most of the way through a two-year lease. He was also home in the middle of the afternoon, but then Joe knew that consultants could keep whatever weird schedules they liked as long as the work got done.

“Police?” Clariss repeated after Joe identified himself to the building intercom.

“Yes. We’d like to speak to you in connection with an investigation into some recent thefts from applied science labs.”

“Oh. Sure. Well, come up then.”

They went up. Clariss was a tall, thin man whose build suggested a sparse diet rather than regular exercise. His height was about his only distinctive feature; there was something oddly generic about his eyes, hair and face, like he was trying to be forgettable. His apartment was the same; the walls weren’t really decorated, there were few photographs around, and the furniture could have come from anywhere.

Joe had decided on a strategy on the way over. “This is Cisco Ramon,” he said. “He’s a CCPD technical consultant. You’re a consultant as well, right? Do you mind me asking who you work for?”

Clariss glanced over at Cisco, then back. “The applied science industry,” he answered. “Queen Consolidated, back when they were a thing. Now I can do them and Palmer Tech at the same time. Then there’s Kord Industries, and I even did a job for Wayne Enterprises once.”

“That’s an impressive résumé,” Joe said, noting the one company that hadn’t been mentioned. “I guess you must travel a lot.”

“One of the reasons I live here. Good for the airport. They don’t call it Central City for nothing.”

Joe smiled. You only got jokes that bad out of people who were nervous.

“What about the government or the military?” Joe asked. “For example, DARPA.”

“Detective West,” Clariss said, “if I had done government work, they’d have made sure I signed a very strict non-disclosure agreement. I could go to prison for answering that.”

That answered it well enough for Joe. “I understand,” he said.

“So… you’re investigating some robberies? Clariss was trying very, very hard to be casual. “I’ve read about them in the newspapers. They say it’s Captain Cold’s gang. Leonard Snart.”

Joe smiled again. “We think it’s possible Snart is working for an industrial espionage ring. They’re somehow finding out about projects and stealing the prototypes for… what’s that word, Cisco?”

“Reverse-engineering,” Cisco supplied, doing his best to sound like he’d explained it at least twice before.

Clariss gave Cisco another thoughtful glance.

“Right. That.” Joe pretended he hadn’t seen the look. “Your name was mentioned as someone with a lot of connections in the industry. We were wondering if you’d heard anything about this?”

“Industrial espionage…” Clariss said thoughtfully. He went silent for a moment, then said, “Sometimes you hear… accusations, detective. But they’re never confirmed. Usually it’s just blueprints or ideas. But whole prototypes stolen by a famous criminal? That would be almost untraceable. I mean, I haven’t heard anything, but as it’s been a few weeks since the thefts, it’s possible that I might.”

“Well, if you do, here’s my card,” Joe handed it over. “Thank you for your time, Doctor Clariss.”

Clariss took the card and dropped it on the table without looking at it. “Detective… who mentioned my name?”

“I’m sorry, doctor, I can’t say. Come on, Cisco. Who’s next on the list?”

“Doctor Karl Hellfern,” Cisco answered.

Clariss’ smile suddenly became a lot more genuine. The door closed behind him and Joe led Cisco back to the car.

“There’s something weird about that guy,” Cisco muttered. “Did you see the way he was looking at me?”

“You never met him before? At STAR Labs?”

Cisco shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“He seemed real happy with the espionage theory,” Joe said. “And that we were talking to other people.”

Cisco laughed. “His theory, though? A secret ring of scientists hiring a criminal to steal stuff for them? I swear I’ve seen that movie.”

Joe nodded. He’d have to check with someone in the computer crime department, but he imagined that it would be much easier to steal a blueprint than a whole machine. He’d seen what expert hackers could do, and they wouldn’t even need to step into the building. Clariss was clearly a smart guy, and he hadn’t said any of that, so either he watched more movies than Cisco or he was trying some misdirection.

“So what now?” Cisco asked.

“We made him nervous,” Joe replied. “He’s not doing this alone. He’ll contact someone or someone will contact him.”

“Stakeout.” Cisco grinned. “Awesome.”

That was not the word that Joe would have chosen.

* * *

Cisco owed Joe so many apologies. He’d acknowledged the warning that a stakeout was dull, but he couldn’t remember ever feeling this bored. They’d been parked outside Clariss’ apartment block the whole afternoon after the interview and all the following morning. The most challenging part was finding the sweet spot to park the car where they could see both the front door and the entrance to the underground parking garage. Joe had looked up the details of Clariss’ car, and Cisco had read them over and over just for something to do.

Waiting for someone to break the law was nothing new to him, but he was used to waiting in the lab, where there were plenty of work or distractions and the alarms would go off when it was time to swing into action. A police stakeout had none of this. Just him in the passenger seat of the carpool’s Buick, Joe behind the wheel, and a big boring building to look at. The waiting made time drag, doubling the length of minutes, or so it seemed. Einstein had said some interesting things about the relative nature of time, but he’d never mentioned how painful it could be.

The worst part was they weren’t even allowed distractions. They had to keep watching the building. Cisco had no idea what they were even waiting for, and neither did Joe. He wondered how many years of training or experience it would take to wait patiently for… something.

“You want to pace yourself with that candy,” Joe remarked.

Cisco sighed. He was almost out of Red Vines and only had four more lollipops left. “I didn’t think we’d be here this long.”

“You’re lucky I did, or you’d be getting dehydrated about now.”

That was also true. They couldn’t run the car’s meagre air-con and opening the window didn’t really help. The weather was uncomfortably close and still today. Maybe they’d get a summer storm.

Another car swished by, making him glance at the road. He was getting quite good at recognising engine sounds. He’d heard two in the past hour that sounded like they needed a service. He wondered how much of that was just his ears and how much was his new ability. He’d been so busy exploring what he could do with his booms that it hadn’t occurred to him until now that his powers might have some passive applications.

But before he could figure out where to go with that, Joe nudged his arm. “We’re up.”

“Oh, thank god.”

Clariss’ heavy Toyota truck poked its nose out onto the street. Fortunately, he turned in the opposite direction to the car, and moved slowly enough for Joe to start the engine and place himself three cars behind. Cisco made a note of the time like he’d been told, and tracked the street signs as they went.

If they hadn’t been tailing someone, it would have been a pleasant drive through the part of town inhabited by ‘young professionals’ – people who’d got starter jobs in banking or advertising that came with a nice apartment, a car and expense account, all at the low, low price of one human soul. As an added bonus, they got nice high-rises to look at from their own panoramic windows, some smart local grocery stores, an arty movie theatre with only two screens, and a landscaped park.

It was at the park that Clariss stopped. Cisco wondered for an awful moment if he’d just come out to go jogging, but he emerged from his car dressed normally and picked a spot on a bench with his back to the road and facing an ornamental flowerbed.

“Is he seriously doing this?” Cisco asked.

But it wasn’t really trench coat weather. Clariss didn’t seem to be meeting anyone. He just glanced back and forth for a moment and then pulled a cell phone out of his pocket.

“He drove eight blocks to make a phone call?” Cisco exclaimed.

“Maybe he’s worried about it being traced,” Joe said.

Joe leaned over the back of the seat and retrieved some of the tools of the stakeout trade. A pair of binoculars that he used for only a few seconds, and then a parabolic microphone which looked like a small, hand-held satellite dish. He aimed it at the man on the bench and pulled on the attached headphones. That left Cisco to watch and wait with the notepad.

“Who’s he talking to?”

“He hasn’t said,” Joe muttered. “But they sound pissed. He’s apologising. It’s not his fault. He had no way of knowing. Something about other arrangements. Compensation… damn, missed that last part.”

Clariss had closed the phone. He sat on the bench alone for a moment, and then he smiled.

“What’s he so happy about?” Joe said.

“He thinks he’s outsmarted someone,” Cisco replied. “That’s the Hartley ‘I’m better than you’ smile.”

The truck left the park and headed back towards the apartment. Joe gave it five cars this time and followed.

“Can you get his phone records?” Cisco asked.

“I don’t think that was his normal cell phone,” Joe replied. “But I’m going to try.”

Their parking spot was still empty when they got back to the building, but Joe didn’t pull up until the truck was inside. He did two laps around the block, just to be safe, then parked and picked up the radio. Cisco sat listening him calling in what had happened and making some information requests in cop slang. Cisco stopped paying attention, he’d picked up the parabolic microphone and was running his fingers over the matt surface.

He closed his eyes and listened.

For a long time, he couldn’t hear anything special, just the everyday noise of Central City’s streets. Joe breathing gently, shifting in his seat every now and then to get a better look or to ease the pressure on his bruises.

Then, slowly, Cisco became aware of something underneath that. The car seemed to sing every time something else drove past. It was old enough that nothing was fastened tight, everything hummed against everything else. Energy, like the kind he channelled into his booms, only in another form. It flowed over him and through him. He could feel it through the seat and the air around him, lapping against his skin.  

He realised then what he’d been doing all along: transformation. Turning one form of vibration into another. But he didn’t need to do that. He could feel the heartbeat of the whole world grumbling in the back of his mind. Now if only there was some way to really hear it.

He took hold of the vibrations, just like he’d been practicing. They were different, and it was strange trying to channel them inwards rather than out. The energy felt like it melted away at his touch. His head was starting to ache, so he made himself relax, open his eyes and have a drink of water before he tried again. It was still there, easier to find this time, but just as difficult to grasp.

He couldn’t understand what he was doing wrong. But then he thought back over how he made the booms. The energy didn’t want to be held, to be stationary, it wanted to flow. All he had to do was let it, channel it. From the world, through his body to his ears and…

It felt like an explosion. Only louder. All the sound in the universe seemed to crash against his ears, a tidal wave mixing every noise from the highest shriek to the lowest roar. He nearly screamed, slamming his palms to the side of his head, trying desperately to block it out before it crushed him. It was over in one awful instant, but it left him curled up with his ears ringing, terrified it would come back and he’d never be able to hear anything again.

“Cisco!” Joe shook him. “Cisco! What is it? You okay?”

He focussed on the voice, hearing the old-fashioned way, afraid that anything else would bring the roar back. He tried to remember how to breathe normally and slow his heart until it wasn’t pounding in his ears anymore.

“Yeah… yeah… I’m alright. I just… I umm… I tried something and it didn’t work.”

“What?” Joe demanded. “What did you do?”

He forced another breath. “It doesn’t matter. I’m okay. Really.”

Joe seemed very reluctant to turn away and go back to looking at the building, but he did eventually. Cisco slumped back in his seat. Every time a car went past, he felt a wave of fear that the noise would keep rising, but it always faded away.  He kept his eyes on the window, pretending he didn’t notice the looks Joe was shooting him.

“I’m hungry,” he said after ten minutes. “We should get lunch. Stay alert. Don’t tell me all those movies lied about stakeout take-out.”

Joe gave him a last, irritated and somehow paternal look, and wordlessly handed over a twenty. Cisco knew that despite the aspirational nature of the neighbourhood, it still contained a Big Belly Burger. He was there and back in ten minutes, stopping to stock up on candy as well.

The afternoon crawled by. No sign of Clariss by three. By half past four and the start of the rush hour, boredom was clawing at Cisco’s mind again. He kept finding himself thinking back to what he’d done. Now that the nausea had faded, the analytical part of his mind had kicked in and he wondered if his mistake had been trying amplifying sound out in the open. It had worked, but far too well. What he needed was controlled conditions. Maybe a soundproofed music studio. Start with a single, known source and work up from there…

Joe wouldn’t approve. Neither would Caitlin, if she were here. Or Iris for that matter. Or… but he stopped thinking there. They had enough things to worry about and playing superhero had almost gotten him killed once. He wasn’t the Flash. He’d never be the Flash.

But he could help Joe. So he pulled out his tablet and looked up some of Clariss’ research. It annoyed him that it had taken so long to do this, he’d been too busy messing about with his own mental experiments. Of course, forcing himself through the back catalogue of a bioengineer wasn’t that useful either.

Clariss’ focus was clearly more on the ‘bio’ part of his specialisation. That was about all Cisco could tell for sure. Maybe he could figure out a way to have Iris send it to Caitlin for translation. All he could get out of it was a running theme of making ‘normal’ people ‘better’ somehow. It took him a while to realise what was odd about that. Caitlin, and indeed her whole department, focussed on medical advances for the benefit of people who were sick or suffering, they were happy to leave healthy people as they were. Apparently Clariss thought that healthy wasn’t enough.

There was only one other thing, and this warranted pointing out to Joe. Back when he was a grad student, Clariss had helped write a meta-analysis on studies into the physical stresses on soldiers in combat. The funding had come from the Department of Defence.

“Hmm…” Joe said, but that was all.

The rush hour passed. Evening was coming on. Cisco was wondering if they’d have to do a third day of this or if they’d try a different strategy tomorrow. Looking at Joe, he could tell he was contemplating the same thing.

Cisco was also getting hungry again. He started thinking whether he should head back to Big Belly Burger or go somewhere else. He almost didn’t notice the parking lot door sliding open.

“Cisco!” Joe hissed.

It was Clariss truck again. And, just as it had done earlier, it turned away from them.

“Maybe he’s headed back to the park,” Cisco said as Joe set off in pursuit.

“Maybe.”

Joe’s scepticism proved correct. Clariss followed a similar route, but only half of it. He pulled up outside the theatre. Perhaps he was falling back on another cliché of spy-craft.

Joe was forced to drive past Clariss to avoid suspicion. Cisco was still craning his neck to see a parking spot when they drove past a big man getting out of his own nondescript car. The high and tight haircut made Cisco look twice, and then he recognised the face beneath it.

“Joe! Joe, that’s Morillo! Grey Ford!”

“Damn,” Joe muttered.

He pulled the car around the corner and nearly slammed it into the curb coming to a stop. Cisco supposed they didn’t have to worry about getting a ticket. Joe jumped out of the car and, because he didn’t tell Cisco to stay where he was, Cisco took this as an invitation. They reached the corner just in time to see Clariss follow Morillo down an alley that led behind the theatre.

Joe turned as they neared the alley, apparently just noticing Cisco was behind him. “If you’re gonna come, stay low, watch my back. If anybody shoots, get down and stay here.”

“Right,” Cisco said.

His mouth was dry. The possibility of gunfire had not occurred to him when he’d left the car.

Joe slipped his pistol into his hand, thumbed it and peered down the passageway. Clariss and Morillo were standing next to each other beside one of the theatre’s fire exits. They were talking quietly and casually, and that was apparently enough for Joe, who stepped out into the open and raised his gun.

“CCPD! Jared Morillo, stay where you are! Hands up! Both of you!”

The two men started and looked up. Joe advanced towards them, Cisco scuttling along in the shadow of the wall. The doctor and the bank robber were watching Joe. Clariss backed away a few steps, Morillo followed suit. Joe continued forward.

“I said stay where you are! Don’t move! You’re under arrest! Show me your hands!”

Clariss stepped back again and raised his hands, palms towards them. Morillo matched him and raised his own, but they were clenched. He was holding something.

Cisco felt his heart leap into his throat. The barrel of Joe’s gun shifted to Morillo.

“Drop it!”

Morillo glanced to his left, at Clariss. Their eyes met and Cisco saw Clariss nod. Then Morillo dropped his right arm to waist height.

Cisco threw himself flat. Part of his mind registered that whatever Morillo was holding wasn’t a gun, but it didn’t matter because Joe was already pulling the trigger.

Then the light flickered. Cisco waited for the sound of the gunshot, but it didn’t come. A few seconds passed in silence, and then he looked up. Joe hadn’t moved. He was in exactly the same position, muscles braced for the recoil, one eye half-closed and the other sighting down his pistol.

Cisco looked at the gun and saw the impossible. The barrel was still. He thought he could actually see the shockwaves expanding from the muzzle along with the debris from the charge. A small piece of metal hung in the air a few inches away, corkscrewing lazily as it crept slowly forward. The bullet.

It, the gun, and Joe himself, were frozen in time.

For a second, Cisco didn’t know what to do. Then he remembered he wasn’t alone and desperately scrambled backwards, seeking shelter behind a dumpster.

The next sound he heard was Clariss laugh. “Quick! Quick! Take a picture. Or no one will believe this.”

There was a pause, and then the unmistakable sound of a cell phone camera.

Cisco glanced out of his tiny cover. Whatever had frozen Joe, he could see the outline of its effect. The field was about four feet lengthways and wide enough to reach half way across the alley. He hoped to god that Joe would simply return to normal speed when the power was switched off.

“Cisco!” Clariss called. “Do you mind if I call you Cisco? It’s called the Turtle! What do you think?”

Cisco kept still and stayed quiet. He didn’t know if either man had a gun. The mouth of the alleyway yawned invitingly less than fifty feet away. He could get out, find a cop, call for backup.

But that would mean leaving Joe.

“Cisco!” Clariss yelled again. “We won’t hurt the cop! Not if you come out! Don’t make me start counting!”

Cisco ignored him. He fumbled for his cell phone. The signal bars were empty. He nearly threw it across the alley in frustration. Then he wondered if that wasn’t just bad luck. This whole thing had been a trap. A trap for him.

He couldn’t run and backup wasn’t coming. But he still had his powers. And Morillo knew what they could do.

He fought back the fear of the noise and focussed on the technique he knew, pulling the vibrations from the world itself, gathering them around him. Then he stuck his arm out from behind the dumpster and fired a boom down the alley.

There was a crash. He didn’t look but he dearly wanted to. He thought he heard a heavy thud.

“Alright!” Clariss screamed. “The hard way!”

Cisco had only a moment to wonder what that was. Then he heard a sound like a rush of wind. Something shot down the alley, straight past him. The sun was in his eyes and the only impression he got was a shadow blocking the light and then vanishing again.

Then the noise came again, louder, and before he could summon another boom, something hit him, wrenching him around. He slammed into the ground on his face, out in the open. His chest and arm ached, but he pushed himself to his feet. Clariss and Morillo were standing in the same place they had been. Clariss was smiling again.

The air roared and the shadow rushed down on him. He had no time to fend it off. It hit him in the chest and nearly flipped him over. He crashed down on his back, pain searing down his spine. It was all he could do to roll onto his side, try to remember how to stand.

Then one last pulse and a blow caught him to the side of the head. The world spun. Cisco rolled onto his back again. He couldn’t move. He could just look up at the shape standing over him.

It was dressed all in black. Not leather, something more flexible, perhaps reinforced. He couldn’t focus enough to tell. The face was hidden behind the reflective visor of an adapted motorcycle helmet.

“I hope you’re impressed,” Clariss said from somewhere close by.

The helmeted figure didn’t speak. Cisco thought he saw the hand blur, but that might just have been the blow to his head. Either way, there was suddenly an injection gun in it. Cisco felt a cold sting on his arm, and he fell into the dark.


	12. Cisco's Inferno

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter where things get unpleasant. No more unpleasant than some scenes in 'Arrow' or 'Legends'; I stand by my rating. However, as this chapter is told from the perspective of the person on the receiving end of the unpleasantness, I realise some readers may find it more upsetting. Brace yourselves.

Cisco didn’t want to wake up. His dreams weren’t so frightening anymore, he was getting used to them. He tried to analyse them afterwards, pick them apart for anything useful, any of the could-bes that would apply in his world as well as the one he saw.

Only this wasn’t the sort of sleep where he’d dream and then wake. This was a thick black syrup of unconsciousness receding slowly and surely, like a tide. And the first thing Cisco felt, before he even clearly remembered what had happened or where he might be, was unease. The waking world was the place he should be afraid of now.

Memories flared like dim bulbs. Joe transformed into a statue by a technological medusa. The speedster in black. Clariss smiling.

Then something else overtook them. Caitlin staring at him with Killer Frost’s steel-blue eyes. Joe would be alright. He’d call Crystal and Iris and they’d call Caitlin. They’d look for him and they’d find him. They wouldn’t give up. Maybe he could think of a way to help them somehow, but the thing he could give them right now was time.

His mind was waking up, even though his thoughts still seemed to drag. Every one took effort. Clariss hadn’t taken him for nothing. He wasn’t a hostage or a bargaining chip. Clariss wanted something from him. Whatever that was, he guessed Clariss would start trying to get it almost as soon as he realised Cisco had regained consciousness. So that moment had to be prolonged as long as possible.

That thought made his heart accelerate and he fought to keep it normal. He concentrated on keeping his breaths long, shallow and regular. He willed his muscles to stay relaxed.

Slowly, slowly, awareness of the outside world began to trickle in. He was lying on his back on what was probably a bed. He could feel a mattress and a pillow. They were both thin and hard. He didn’t dare move, but he thought he thought he could feel the metal bedframe and the springs.

There was a dull pressure on his left wrist where his watch should have been. A handcuff. Again, he couldn’t move to test the range of movement, but the fact that he was only restrained by one wrist should have told him something. He just couldn’t figure out what that was.

The air in the room was warm. It was stuffy, poorly ventilated. There was only a little light coming through his eyelids. It felt artificial. He wondered what time it was, and how long he’d been unconscious.

He couldn’t feel or hear anyone else with him. He guessed he was alone, just being watched by a camera rather than a guard. That clicked together with the single cuff: whoever was holding him, they didn’t consider him a physical threat. They were almost certainly right, but Cisco doubted they knew what he’d been through and some of the things he’d done under pressure.

But what about his powers? They knew about those. And then he became aware of the sound, right on the edge of hearing. A soft, patient hum.

The Mercury Labs sound suppressor. That’s why it had been stolen. Not so it wouldn’t be used on Morillo’s gun. So Clariss could use it on him.

Did that make Clariss the person who was spying on the Rogues? The one who’d made Snart nervous enough he’d been willing to let Caitlin plant herself in the gang? But it couldn’t be Clariss alone. He couldn’t have engineered Dillon’s disappearance by himself. And what about Morillo? And the speedster?

Morillo had vanished from the Marines. Clariss had connections to DARPA. Barry had been shot by a trained sniper with a military rifle. Did it all connect?

Even if it did, there were still too many missing pieces. Clariss was a bioengineer. He might have weaponized infra-sound but the physics behind the Cold and Heat Guns would be beyond him. And what about the thing he’d called the Turtle? The machine that had frozen Joe in time.

Frozen in time.

It took all of Cisco’s control not to open his eyes and scream. It was a long moment of battling against his own impulses before he could bring himself to even contemplate the thought. He told himself it was impossible, that it couldn’t be _him_. He was in prison.

But Dillon had been in prison too.

He didn’t have a chance to follow that line of reasoning. Despite his best efforts, some of his emotion must have showed on his face. He heard footsteps outside, a bolt being drawn and then a door open. One corner of the room brightened, but he couldn’t tell if it was daylight or not. He kept his eyelids relaxed and tried to stay still, tried not to flinch as the steps came closer.

“Cisco,” Clariss said. “Cisco, I know you’re awake.”

It flashed through Cisco’s mind simply to risk a boom, knock Clariss down and run for it. He told himself that he wasn’t a coward for choosing not to. He didn’t know whether not the noise generator really would cancel out his powers, and even if it couldn’t, he had no idea what was outside the door.

Instead, he tried to pretend he was just waking up. He moved slowly, tugging at the handcuffed arm like he didn’t know what was happening. He opened his eyes and looked at the celling rather than the man standing over him.

“What’s… going on? Where am I?”

“Somewhere we can talk,” Clariss said. “The details don’t matter. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Cisco.”

Cisco did his best to sit up, making his actions slower than they needed to be. It gave him a chance to look around the room, but that was hardly worth it. There was no furniture other than the bed and a stack of chairs in one corner. The walls were white and bare. A single, small window was letting in some sunlight. He couldn’t see the noise generator.

“What’s that sound?” he asked, rubbing his ears.

“A special kind of white-noise generator,” Clariss replied. “I know about your powers, Cisco. If you try to use them, the machine will simply suppress them with the opposite frequency.”

This guy should never be allowed in the same room as Hartley. They’d cause some kind of smugness singularity. But Cisco had lived most of his life with people underestimating his intelligence. If Clariss wanted to do it as well, then he wouldn’t stop him.

“How?” Cisco asked.

Clariss smiled. “My… colleagues have been watching you. Your friends call you ‘Vibe’, don’t they? Former friends.”

Cisco didn’t look at him. He didn’t want to give anything away.

“I’m sorry,” Clariss went on. “Sore subject, right? Tell me later. First, I want to talk to you about some things.”

“Like what?” Cisco asked, finding it very easy to sound scared.

“Tell me about the Cold Gun.”

And Cisco realised, then and there, that Clariss knew who shot Barry. He didn’t understand how or why, but anyone else who knew about Cisco’s extra-curricular activities would have started by asking about the Flash. Unless they knew he was out of the picture.

Clariss had also, if Cisco had learned anything from Joe, broken the first rule of good interrogation. Never let the suspect know exactly what you don’t know. Start with the easy questions, the ones you’re pretty sure you already have an answer for, then work up to ‘where were you on the night in question?’.

A direct question like that was too easy to refuse to answer. Which Cisco did. He sat back on the bed, the steel frame digging into his back, looking Clariss in the eye and keeping his mouth shut.

“You know what will happen you don’t talk, don’t you?” Clariss said. “We’ll make you. Call it informed consent. Say nothing if you’re okay with that.”

Cisco wondered if the fear showed in his eyes. It didn’t matter, though. He’d been trapped alone with worse things than Clariss. He clenched his jaw tight enough to grind his teeth.

The smile faded from Clariss’ face. He walked over into the corner of the room and lifted a chair off the stack. He put the chair down beside the bed and knelt down to make some adjustments. Cisco didn’t look, but he was certain the chair was being fastened to the floor.

“Jared!” Clariss called.

The door squeaked open again and Morillo came in. He was wearing a green t-shirt and sweat pants. He looked thoughtfully at Cisco and then turned to Clariss.

“He’s stubborn,” Clariss said.

Morillo stepped behind Cisco and grabbed his arms. The man’s thick fingers sank into Cisco’s skin, and he held back a whimper. As soon as the hold was secure, Clariss unlocked the handcuff, and then Morillo hauled Cisco upright and dragged him to the chair. Cisco didn’t fight it, he just tried to stay relaxed as he was slammed hard into the seat and his hands twisted behind his back. Pain spiked through his elbows and shoulders and he squeezed his eyes shut. Then he heard a zipping sound as light, plastic cuffs were fastened around his wrists, binding them in position. Morillo’s grip released and the pain eased. He focussed on breathing, trying to ignore the remaining aches or think about how much worse the next part would be.

Morillo stood over him. Clariss sat down on the edge of the bed. “Last chance, Cisco.”

He could have tried to say something defiant or clever, but there was no point. He’d been hit before. He knew how much it hurt, but he also knew he could survive it. He went on saying nothing.

Morillo’s first punch was straight into his belly. The air exploded out of his lungs and he crumpled, leaning forward in the chair. The shock passed in a second and the pain throbbed through his abdomen. He made himself take a breath, forcing the air in and out in sharp gasps.

For a moment, the room was silent except for the sound of his ragged breathing. Then Morillo looked over at Clariss, and hit him again.

The second blow was harder. Some faint and distant part of Cisco’s mind wondered if the first hadn’t been pulled somehow. This bit deep into the flesh already battered by the first. The pain redoubled and Cisco had to grind his teeth to keep his mouth shut, air hissing between his closed lips.

His body, acting on its own, tried to retreat from the third strike, but there was nowhere to go. It crashed into the other side of his stomach, and this time Cisco couldn’t help but whimper. Neither Clariss or Morillo reacted to the sound. There was just the same agonising pause while he fought to get his breath back, and then Morillo struck again.

Cisco lost count after that. The pain layered over itself, it rarely retreated. Each blow brought the surge up higher. Soon he could barely remember the people hitting him or why they were doing it. Then Morillo changed targets, aiming for his ribs and solar plexus, and he felt like his lungs were being crushed and his heart would explode under the pressure. Every blow was placed slightly differently, each of the agonising aftershocks crashed through his brain in a unique pattern.

He was sure he was dying. The pain had forced all conscious thought from him except the desperate wish for this to stop. His throat was raw and burned with bile. He couldn’t remember how to speak. The drumbeat of pain started to feel distant, as though it was pushing his soul out of his body.

He didn’t even register when the punches stopped coming. The agony still rose and fell inside him as his ribs expanded against battered flesh. Each breath was accompanied by a hiss as the pain got too much. He had to concentrate so hard just to take enough shallow breaths to stop his lungs from screaming too.

As he breathed, the fog cleared. Morillo was still standing over him. Clariss was still sitting on the bed.

“You know it only gets worse from here, right?” Clariss said. “Come on, Jared. We’ll give him some time to think it over.”

They both walked out of the door without looking back. Cisco was left in the chair, held in place by his cuffs. He couldn’t have moved even if he’d wanted to.

* * *

They’d left him alone, but the pain hadn’t. The ache in his chest was omnipresent, but he became aware of new pains in the rest of his body. Hammers struck dull blows in his jaw as he tried to un-clench it. Knives stabbed into his shoulder joints. Nails twisted in the muscles from his neck to his knees.

Even straightening up was a struggle. Every time he moved, agony would burst somewhere else in his body, and it was a long time before he could simply rest with his back against the metal chair. He wanted so much to just pass out, but the pain wouldn’t let him go.

This was just another part of the torture. Knowing that they’d come back and the pain would restart. And again, and again, and again. Until he broke. And he would break, he realised. He didn’t know how he’d survived the first round; he couldn’t guarantee he’d make it through whatever came next.

But he told himself again he didn’t have to last forever. Just until he was rescued. The chances of him rescuing himself had just gone through the floor. The others would come for him, though. Once they’d figured out who had taken him, and where he was, and come up with a plan, and put it into motion. How long would that take?

His mind drifted, seeking some sort of escape from his body. Perhaps he dozed, but he wasn’t sure. He could hear faint sounds in the distance, beyond the hum of the noise generator. He didn’t know how long it took, but it began to dawn on him that the generator wasn’t suppressing all sound, it would probably only kick in if it sensed a build-up of vibrations when he tried to use his powers. It was still letting sound in from the outside.

He’d nearly deafened himself doing this last time, but it wasn’t like a mistake now could make things much worse. The hardest part was focussing, blotting out the aches nagging his body and reaching out to feel the vibrations around him. The strongest source, like a featureless floor, was the generator, but he could sense other things beneath that. He reached down into the quiet, feeling for the noises from outside his prison.

They were faint, but they were there. He didn’t want to channel them directly, instead he cautiously tried to sense around the edges, unpicking the layers that made them up. The first one he managed to get a real sense of was intermittent, pulsing around him, sometimes louder and sometimes quieter, but always very regular. He let the waves flow past him, not directly into his ears this time, and felt-heard the hard, sharp thuds of boots on concrete. It didn’t sound exactly right, like it was missing pieces, but he knew that’s what it was.

Soldiers marching. A military base. That fitted with the room. There was something lifeless and government issue about his prison, now he had a chance to think about it.

He searched for more sounds and managed to locate a series of heavy growls, rising, fading and then rising again. Vehicle motors. Stick-shift trucks, he thought, hoping what he was hearing was the engine revs drop as they changed gear.

There were other tremors he could sense, but they were far too faint to understand. From the pitch, he wondered if they were voices, but there wasn’t enough signal left to work with.

But there was one other noise. It took him a while to notice it. He’d been trying to filter it out of the other sounds, thinking it was interference. But it wasn’t; it was background noise. A low, irregular whistling that came and went, sometimes growing to a moan or falling to a whisper, and full of crackling like static. It was the wind, Cisco realised, a wind that had travelled unobstructed for miles and miles blowing across the base, full of dust it had picked up on its journey.

So now he knew where he was. A military base somewhere in the Badlands, probably to the east or north-east of the city. Far from prying eyes, but not so remote they didn’t have proper buildings and a paved road coming in. Probably no more than a hundred miles from Central City. He hoped.

That was all he could gather before he started losing his concentration. Fresh torments piled on top of the obvious ones. His tongue scraped across his dry lips and his mouth was dust and cotton. His stomach still felt like it was full of acid, but now hunger was clawing at his insides as well. In an effort to distract himself, he tried to use the sensation to gauge the passage of time.

After a while, he tried to go back to listening, searching for any more clues to his location. But he couldn’t unravel anything else. Then drumbeat of footsteps started to come closer. Two sets, one regular, the other lacking the military force. Cisco pulled himself back, trying to not to show any signs of what he’d been attempting. He thought about slumping in the chair again, but didn’t want to try the same trick so soon.

Clariss came in with Morillo. He gave Cisco a careful look. He must have seen Cisco bracing himself because Clariss just nodded to Morillo and sat down at the end of the bed again.

Morillo walked up to Cisco. Cisco looked back at him. At least the waiting was over. Sometimes the wait for a bomb to go off was worse than the explosion.

Then Morillo slapped him hard across the face.

His cheek caught fire. His neck jerked around. It felt like his brain and spine were shaken loose. He nearly bit through his tongue.

The next blow was a backhand, snapping his head in the opposite direction. He squeaked with pain. The water in his eyes turned to tears.

Two more hard cracks followed, and this time the world started to spin. His skull squeezed his brain. His numb cheeks tingled as hot tears trickled down them.

He couldn’t help it. He whispered, “Please…”

Morillo stopped. Cisco fought the nails in his neck to look up. Morillo was looking at Clariss. Clariss was just thinking.

“Almost,” he said. “We just need a little more.” He took a radio out of his pocket. “Roscoe? Do you want to help us with Cisco?”

“Sure, doc,” the radio replied. “But I’ll need my shot first.”

Even through the blurring, Cisco caught the expression of irritation which crossed Clariss’ face. “Five minutes,” he said, and clipped the radio back onto his belt. “Can you watch him, Jared?”

Clariss hurried out and Morillo sat down in his place. Five minutes, Cisco thought desperately. Five there and five back at least. Ten minutes to try something. Anything.

His first idea was desperate.

“You don’t have to do this,” he muttered.

Morillo looked up, but he didn’t speak.

“You don’t have to do this,” Cisco repeated. “Did… did they tell you what I can do?”

Morillo still didn’t answer, but he didn’t look away either. “It’s not just the booms,” Cisco went on. “I… I see things. Alternate realities. Things that could have happened. I’ve seen you.”

Morillo’s eyes widened just a little. He leaned forward, trying to see a lie. But Cisco had no energy for anything but total honesty.

“I’ve seen you,” he said. “You’re a cop. In Keystone. Another Keystone. You work… to protect people. You can do that here too. You were a Marine, right? A good Marine.”

“I am a good Marine,” Morillo said.

He stood up and walked with firm, regular strides to the door, and took his position there like a sentry. Cisco’s head sagged.

Morillo was obeying orders. He had to be. The reasoning was too blurred for him to consider, but it meant something. And Cisco didn’t know anything about Dillon.

That just left Clariss, who was determined to get something from Cisco. Cisco knew he couldn’t stop that now. But perhaps he could slow him down.

It was a risk, a terrible one, but one Cisco realised he had to take. He told himself it wasn’t cowardice, he wasn’t giving in. He needed time, and perhaps he could buy himself more than that.

The door opened again. Clariss came in, followed by Dillon. Dillon was dressed the same as his partner, and he carried a basketball under each arm.

“What do you want, doc?” Dillon asked.

“Just try not to break anything,” Clariss replied. “And don’t aim for his head.”

He and Morillo backed up behind Dillon, almost to the door. The Top stood in front of Cisco, bouncing the ball against the floor. Cisco did his best not to tense up; an impact would do less damage if he was relaxed. He still wanted to flinch away, but there was still nowhere to go.

Dillon grinned at him, and then started to spin. The room filled with the high whistle of battered air and the chair trembled against its moorings. Cisco kept his eyes on the vortex, silently begging Dillon to just release, wondering how much damage a basketball could do at that speed.

He didn’t even see it. There was a blur and a hollow boom behind him. The ball bounced off the rear wall and Morillo caught it.

“You missed,” he said.

“You try it,” Dillon shot back.

Morillo threw him the ball and he spun up again. Again, the seconds dragged. This time there was a ripping sound and a feeling like someone had driven a brand into the side of Cisco’s face. He pulled his head away, as his battered cheek flared again and his ear burned like it might have been ripped off. He didn’t even see when the ball went, he squeezed his eyes shut, taking ragged breaths until the pain died down.

“ _Not the head_ ,” Morillo said firmly.

“Sorry, doc,” Dillon said. “I’m a hockey guy.”

The whirlwind formed around him, and Cisco tried to brace himself. He wondered how many of these he could take before he broke for real.

The ball struck his knee and Cisco thought it must have shattered. He screamed through the blinding pain and slumped in the chair, almost pulling his shoulders out of joint. His whole leg went numb. He tried to move it, but it felt like it was full of hot splinters.

Then, mercifully, Clariss said, “Tell me about the Cold Gun, Cisco.”

“Okay,” Cisco gasped. “Okay. I will. I will.”

“Oh,” Dillon said. “Is that it?”

“That’s it,” Morillo told him.

“I’ll call you if I need you again,” Clariss said. He waited until they were out of the room and then turned back to Cisco. “So… the Cold Gun.”

Cisco pulled himself upright, trying to ignore the additional protests from his shoulders. He still couldn’t feel his leg, which probably meant that it was really going to hurt when he could.

“Okay…” he said. “Okay. It’s just… Your smart. Real smart. I mean, you did something to Dillon, right? You must have. He was in prison when the accelerator blew but now he’s got powers.”

Clariss smiled. “Thanks. But what about the gun?”

“Umm…” Cisco did his best to look like he was pulling his thoughts together and failing. It wasn’t hard to simulate right now. “Well… you’re smart. But you’re a doctor, right? Like a medical doctor. I tried to tell Caitlin once and she didn’t get it. I’ll tell you, I promise, I will.” He put real fear into his voice. “But I don’t know how to explain it so you’ll understand. I’m sorry.”

The smile didn’t go away. “Well,” Clariss said. “It’s a good thing I know a physicist. You can tell him.”

“Okay,” Cisco said. “Okay.”

His heart was in his throat. The moment of truth.

Then the door opened and Professor Solomon Hunter walked in.

Cisco’s heart nearly stopped. He had to fight back a fresh wave of tears. He couldn’t let himself break down now.

Hunter crossed the room slowly and quietly, pulled up another chair and sat down. Cisco wondered if he recognised him. They’d only met face to face once, very briefly. Cisco tried not to look at him. He half-expected the other man to start blurring in his seat, and to reach out and drive one of those heavy fists into Cisco’s heart like he’d nearly done before.

“Professor, this is Cisco Ramon.”

“I remember,” Hunter said. “He’s very clever. His talent for thermodynamics goes beyond Snart’s weapon.”

“Really?” Clariss asked.

“It’s a long story,” Cisco whispered.

“Later,” Hunter said. “Tell us about the Cold Gun.”

Cisco groped for something true but harmless. “It… it runs off a fifty-kilovolt power supply so I’ll need access to high grade –”

Clariss cut him off. “Not how to build it, tell us how it works.”

“Oh… okay. I… I will. I just… first I need to talk to Eiling.”

“Eiling?” Clariss stared at him for a moment, then laughed. “We don’t work for General Eiling.”

Cisco tried not to show any reaction to that. “Then whoever your boss is, I have to talk to them. Please. I’ll tell you whatever you want, but it’s really important I see them first.”

Clariss looked at Hunter. “What do you think, professor?”

“See if she’ll speak to him,” Hunter replied.

The two men left Cisco alone. It felt like his whole body ached, but his mind was finally clear. He fought to block out the pain enough to think about how the Cold Gun worked. How much he could give them that they probably knew already, how much wouldn’t hurt, and what he had to hold back to the end.

The next time the door opened, he had just enough time to glance at the light coming through the gap. It was tinted orange and quite faint. He desperately hoped that meant a sunset.

Then he looked up at the woman who’d come in, flanked by the two scientists. She was taller than Hunter, solidly built, black hair in a tight plait, and wearing the green Marine Corps service uniform. She had a chest full of ribbons and insignia that he couldn’t read, but the silver eagles on her shoulders were clear enough. Full-bird colonel.

“Colonel Black,” Clariss said, gesturing to his prisoner. “This is Cisco Ramon. The man who built the Cold Gun.”

The colonel’s eyes narrowed as they swept over Cisco. “He’s a kid,” she said.

“He is,” Hunter agreed. “So was the Flash. And he’s clever. Harrison Wells knew how to choose a student.”

“I see you’ve been questioning him,” Black remarked. “Has he told you how the gun works?

“He says he will. But he wanted to speak to you first. He said it was important.”

Black crossed the room and stood in front of Cisco. He pulled his head up, and when he realised she wasn’t going to speak first, said, “Can I have some water?”

“No. What do you want?”

“It’s about the Cold Gun,” Cisco said. “If I tell you how it works, you’re going to build more, right? Well… if Snart finds out he’ll know I told you. He said he’d kill me if I built one for anybody but him. So… if I help, you’ve gotta protect me. Please.”

Black was silent for a moment. Cisco didn’t like the look in her eyes. “Alright,” she said. “If you co-operate, I promise that you will not fall into Leonard Snart’s hands.”

“Thank you,” Cisco whispered. “Thank you. I’ll tell you everything. I’ll just need a computer. Something that can do equations.” He tried to sound apologetic. “It’s kinda complicated and it’s all in my head.”

Black turned away. “Doctor? Professor? I’d like to speak to you outside.”

The scientists wordlessly acquiesced and followed her out. The door snapped closed.

As soon as it had, Cisco closed his eyes. He knew what their voices sounded like, and he knew what they felt like. He reached past the layer of interference and found the pools of noise close on the other side. The voices were distorted, like an old recording, but he could feel the words.

“You said you were making progress getting close to Snart’s gang,” Black said. “If we have that, why do we need the boy?”

“The Rogues are unpredictable,” Clariss replied. “They might get arrested or go on the run. Even if they don’t, it might take a month to get what we need. Cisco can explain the gun in a week.”

“But will you understand it?”

“I will,” Hunter said. “I’ve seen what he can do. I’ll find out how the weapon works.”

“I hope so. Keep your end of our agreement, professor. I’m still not sure our end was worth it. Tell the boy he’ll have his computer first thing in the morning. I want a report from both of you at the end of the day tomorrow. Goodnight.”

The voices cut off, and Cisco felt the footsteps roll away across the concrete. Then there was a short explosion of steps, coming closer.

Cisco pulled himself back as he felt the door open. Clariss strode across the room and knelt in front of him.

“You’ll get your computer tomorrow, Cisco. Make sure you use it.” He slipped an injection gun out of his pocket and held it up. “This is what you were asking about. This is a serum that can give an ordinary person metahuman powers. But I’ve never used it on an actual meta before, and I really want to know what will happen if I do. So don’t play any games, Cisco, or we’ll find out together.”

He got up and walked out. The door slammed and Cisco heard it lock.

Tomorrow. He’d only managed to buy himself thirty-six hours himself in total. It wasn’t enough. Either he could face the serum and its consequences in the morning, or he could start giving Clariss what he wanted, trading the secrets of the Cold Gun for more time.

Part of him said he should do it. Because he’d learned so much more. Solomon Hunter was the puzzle’s missing piece. He had the physics and engineering skill to build the vertigo gun and that Turtle device which had trapped Joe. Maybe he was even behind the other speedster.

But more important than that, Hunter knew the Flash’s real name. He’d seen Barry’s face during their final battle. His price for helping Colonel Black had been revenge by proxy. They’d shot Barry for him.

Now all Cisco had to do was live long enough to tell someone. But he didn’t know if he could. If Barry were here, he’d say it was alright, that Cisco shouldn’t risk his life for this, that it was okay to give Clariss what he wanted. But it wasn’t that simple. How was Cisco supposed to live with himself after he’d given another villain such a terrible power?

He didn’t know. Tomorrow either he’d break, or he wouldn’t. And he had no idea which it would be. Either way, Black hadn’t made any promises about his safety. She’d never let him leave her base alive.

That thought was all that was left to him as the night closed in, crushing the faint hope of a rescue that wouldn’t come in time.

That thought, and one other. A fragment of prayer from his childhood that echoed in Cisco’s mind because his mouth was too dry to speak the words.

_Hail Mary, full of grace. Pray for us sinners now… and at the hour of our death._


	13. Beatrice

Iris wondered if it would amuse the Rogues to know that their recent and unusually compressed crime spree was getting in the way of her more serious journalistic ambitions. She’d spent the day before writing up their robbery of Mercury Labs and then had to try and catch up on her research calls about the mayor’s plan to move the lines of the local school districts for the third time in a decade. She took a break from her efforts to condense the statements she’d wrangled out of City Hall into quotes and checked her hidden email account. She was surprised to see an email from Caitlin. She’d been expecting to hear from her yesterday, if at all.

The email was short, to the point and utterly inexplicable: _It wasn’t us. Find Peek-a-Boo_.

Iris read the message again, just to make sure. The Rogues had definitely been at Mercury Labs, there was no doubt about that. What did Caitlin mean? The last time any of them had seen Shawna Baez she’d teleported away from the metahuman breakout at Ferris Air and literally and figuratively disappeared. That had been over a year ago. Barry had said he hoped wherever she’d ended up, she’d gone straight. But now Caitlin thought she was not only back in the city, but somehow connected to a robbery everyone was blaming on the Rogues. It didn’t make sense.

Then again, when she’d asked her dad, off the record, about the crime, he’d given her a thoughtful half-answer that told her something was bothering him. Something else that didn’t make sense. Perhaps the one would explain the other.

Iris called her father. It went straight to voicemail. That didn’t surprise her. He into his second day of staking out a possible lead.

She thought for a moment, and then decided to try Crystal. Even though they’d decided to be careful about their communications to maintain the illusion that they were no longer working as a team, she figured it was worth the risk. She texted _ABP Shawna Baez_ to Crystal’s private cell, figuring that she’d get a call back, if only so Crystal could ask for an explanation.

She went back to work, quietly hating the feeling of sitting on the side-lines even now. She told herself that even cops had times when there was nothing to do but watch and wait, but it wasn’t making it any easier.

Twenty minutes, and she tried her dad’s cell again. Still just the voicemail. It was starting to get dark. She flipped on the lights and dialled his other line. It was the same. She called his office, and the phone there rang even if no one picked it up.

She was wondering if she should break her own rule and try Cisco, or Crystal’s work number. She called her dad one more time. This time she got a connection, but no answer.

The tendril of unease she’d been ignoring tightened inside her.

She rang again, and again. Her breath caught in her throat when the line finally opened to a human voice, but it wasn’t her father.

“Hello?”

She didn’t recognise the speaker, and had to keep herself from snapping as she said, “Who is this?”

“This is Officer Suarez with the CCPD.”

Iris nearly dropped the phone, but she held on and made herself speak levelly, because nothing was certain yet. “Officer Suarez, this is Iris West. I’m Detective Joe West’s daughter. That’s his cell phone. Is he alright?”

There was a noise on the other end, an exchange of voices and then a rough rustle. “Iris? Iris, honey, it’s me.”

“Dad?” She nearly sobbed with relief. “Dad, what happened? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, honey,” he said, not sounding it at all. “Iris.” His voice dropped. “Have you seen Cisco? Has he called you?”

“No…”

“Iris, can you put me on hold and call him. Please?” It dawned on her that she could hear fear in her father’s voice.

“I’ve got a spare cell,” she said. “Hang on.”

She scrambled around in her desk drawer for the backup phone she sometimes used for work. It had all her usual numbers in it. She pressed Cisco’s and all she got was the well-remembered recording she hadn’t heard in a very long time.

“It’s turned off,” she whispered. “He never turns it off.”

“I know,” her dad said. “ _Shit!_ ”

Hearing her father swear, something he almost never did in front of her, pulled the floor out from under her. “Daddy, what’s happened?”

There were a few more indistinct sounds before he came back. “We were following Clariss and we saw him with Jared Morillo. They’re working together. They went down an alley and I followed him. And Cisco did too. I pulled my gun and… then there was this weird light and they just vanished. I got real dizzy and I guess I must have passed out. Officer Suarez shook me awake and answered the phone, but Cisco was gone. Iris, I think they took him.”

Her other hand fumbled Cisco’s number again. Nothing.

Clariss and Morillo. Morillo and Dillon. All working together. And they had Cisco.

“Dad, we have to find him.”

“We will.” She heard a little more of her father’s confidence come back. “I’m heading back to the station. I’ll tell the captain and call Crystal.”

Iris nodded. Barely registering what she was doing, she came to a decision.

“Dad, we need Caitlin.”

She expected an argument. She had her response all ready. But her dad just said, “Okay. Get her.”

“I will,” Iris said. “I’ll call you when we’re ready.”

She scrolled through her call list. There was no question that this was the right thing. Caitlin had to know. She’d never forgive them otherwise.

The team’s emergency code-word had been Cisco’s idea. He’d insisted that they’d needed something only for them, a drop-what-you’re-doing, life-or-death call that would look totally innocuous to anyone else. Iris typed it and added _Meeting at 00:00. Cisco’s in trouble_. 

* * *

The parking garage opposite STAR Labs. The fourth level. Where all this started.

Joe moved slowly past the cars. He scanned the darkness in between the vehicles and the pillars. His hand rested on his hip holster. He paused, listened carefully, and was sorely tempted to draw his sidearm as Snart stepped into the light with his own weapon slung casually by his side.

“Hello, detective.”

“Snart. Hands away from the gun.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m gonna count to three.”

“Dead man’s switch, detective. Call it insurance.”

Caitlin appeared by Snart’s side. “He means it, Joe. If he takes his finger off the trigger, the gun will explode.”

“Caitlin,” Iris said, stepping out into the open.

She crossed the space between them. Joe fought the urge to call her back. Caitlin met her half way. They looked each other up and down and then embraced.

“Are you okay?” Iris asked.

“I’m fine,” Caitlin said.

“You sure?”

Caitlin smiled and looked Iris in the eye. “I’m okay. I promise.”

Iris nodded, let out a breath and then turned around. “Dad?”

“What about him?” Joe asked.

Caitlin turned towards Snart and gave him a simple nod. Snart made an adjustment to the Cold Gun and let his arms drop to his sides.

“I’ll be good.”

Despite all his good instincts and everything his training was telling him, Joe took his hands off his gun. He snapped his holster closed, but didn’t even try to imitate Snart’s nonchalance.

As soon as it became apparent that the truce would hold, Caitlin asked, “What happened to Cisco?”

Doing his best to ignore Snart, Joe recounted the events of his stakeout. He saw Caitlin become more tense as he reached the climax, and wondered if she was thinking what he’d been thinking ever since it happened: that he should have ordered Cisco back to the car. The kid had been his responsibility and he’d walked him into what would have been a shootout if things hadn’t got really weird.

“Then there was this light, and they were gone. I blacked out, and when I woke up, Officer Suarez was talking to Iris on my cell phone.”

“I’d been calling him for over half an hour, trying to get through,” Iris added.

Caitlin’s eyes narrowed. “How long do you think you were unconscious?”

Joe shrugged. It was hard to guess these things. “Couldn’t have been more than a few minutes.”

“And there was nothing else strange?” Caitlin asked.

“Just your watch,” Iris said.

“When I got back to the station, I checked the time. It was nearly an hour out,” Joe explained. “They must have damaged it.”

“But it’s running fine now,” Iris pointed out.

“Does that matter?” Joe asked.

“I don’t know,” Caitlin muttered. “We’ll worry about it later. Where could Clariss have taken Cisco?”

“I’ve got officers combing the city for them,” Joe said. “Over the bridge, too.”

“They won’t find them,” Snart said. “They know the CCPD will be looking for them. If they’re smart, they’ll have somewhere safe out of your reach.”

Caitlin’s expression emptied again. She glanced at Snart, and then said, “I know someone who might know. We need to find Shawna Baez.”

“Why?” Snart asked.

“The cell samples I took from the vault in Mercury Labs belonged to her,” Caitlin replied. “I recognised the behaviour caused by her ability. She was the one who stole… whatever that was. Not the Rogues.”

“And when were you going to tell me that, Doctor Snow?” Snart asked, his voice dropping a few degrees.

“When I was sure,” Caitlin responded.

Joe wasn’t sure if Snart believed her, but he gave a quick smile and backed off. Everyone relaxed.

“So how do we find her?” Iris asked. “An APB will take time and she’s going to run if she sees a cop.”

“Shawna Baez,” Snart said. “Mid-twenties. Five-ten, five-eleven. Brown hair, brown eyes. Thin. Pretty. Likes a drink. Likes a fight. Doesn’t like the Flash.”

“That’s her,” Iris replied. “Why?”

Snart didn’t answer. He pulled a phone from his jacket and dialled a number Joe couldn’t see. “Theo, it’s me. Call around, I need to find someone. Fast.” He repeated the description, minus the part about the Flash. “She’s _interesting_. You’d know why if you saw. Thanks.”

“Who is Theo?” Joe asked.

“I think he’s a bartender,” Caitlin said.

“And he knows every bar in the city she’d go,” Snart added.

“Why are you keeping tabs on her?” Joe demanded. “She still owe you a favour?”

“I like to keep my options open, detective.”

“He was thinking of offering her a job,” Caitlin said.

Joe could read nothing in Snart’s expression but faint amusement, but that slipped as he turned to look at Caitlin. She’d hit close to home and he didn’t like it.

Then the amusement came back. “Lisa would have liked the company,” he said. “But that was before she had Doctor Snow to play with.”

Caitlin didn’t react. Something told Joe she was bored of that joke.

“So if your friend finds her, what then?” Iris asked. “Why are you helping us, Snart? For another favour?”

“Lisa will be so sad if anything happens to Cisco.”

Iris saw right through that one. “Try again. Are you still just protecting your trademark? With Cisco’s tech out in the open, you won’t be Captain Cold anymore, will you?”

Snart looked down at her. The amusement faded completely. “You helped Lisa,” he said. “I’ll help you. You have my word.”

From anyone else, Joe would have dismissed it immediately. Mardon, Nimbus, Jesse; none of them could be trusted. But Leonard Snart was different. The question was how different. Joe wouldn’t have turned his back on the man, but maybe Iris and Caitlin were right to appeal to his self-interest and desire to protect his own. Or maybe Barry had been right and there really was some good buried deep down. Joe wished he knew which it was.

Whatever Iris thought, she was willing to take the risk. “Okay,” she said.

“Good.” Snart smiled. “Understand this. If we do it, we do it my way. No questions. And no cops. You can come, Iris, but dad stays home.”

Joe stepped forward. “No way.”

“I have a plan for a conversation with Ms Baez, but it wouldn’t look good on your record, detective. You’re already breaking the rules. You’ve been here this whole time, and I’m not in handcuffs. You’ll want to look the other way for the next part.”

Iris looked up at him. “Dad, please. I can handle it.”

Joe pointed at Snart. “You look after her.”

He didn’t need to say anything else. Snart was smart enough to know that Joe could bring the entire city down on him. That sort of thing was bad for business, and about the only thing Joe would truly trust about Snart was his pragmatism.

“We will, Joe,” Caitlin said. “You have _my_ word.”

“Scout’s honour, detective.”

If he’d ever been a boy scout, Joe would eat his badge. How had he ever agreed to this arrangement with Snart and his gang to begin with? The answer was that he’d raised a very determined and persuasive daughter. They’d had no choice, and Iris had known it. He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but she’d made him face the facts. Caitlin had been willing to take the risk, and nothing would sway her either. Joe had barely thought it was possible, but that didn’t mean much around here anymore. There was nothing to do but to trust the impossible for long enough to get Cisco back.

He nodded slowly. “Okay, Snart. Your way. But it won’t mean anything if your contact doesn’t come through.”

“He will, detective.”

And then Snart’s cell phone rang. Like he’d planned it that way.

“Yeah? Thank you, Theo.”

Snart hung up. He took a piece of paper from his pocket and carefully wrote something on it, then handed it to Iris.

“Meet us there at ten. Don’t be late.”

“You found her?” Iris asked. “Where is she?”

“Tomorrow,” Snart said. “Doctor Snow, we need to get ready.”

Caitlin nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Iris.”

Snart walked away without a word. Caitlin gave them each a stiff smile and, and then followed him.

Joe sighed and ran a hand over his face. It was getting late, and his ribs were starting to ache again.

“Iris, honey, are you sure?”

Iris turned, with her arms folded. “Dad, I have to. Cisco needs us. If it was Barry, you wouldn’t stop him.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Joe replied. “But Snart is dangerous. I don’t want you to forget that. He’s been playing along so far, but if he sees an advantage, he’ll take it.”

“I know,” Iris said. “But I have something I can hold over him.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.” Iris grinned. “I keep his name in the press.”

Joe couldn’t help but laugh. His daughter was a brilliant woman. She’d be alright.

* * *

Iris was at the corner of 75th and Davis at ten minutes to ten. She waited, watching the junction, seeing no one. She’d had to park her car three blocks away and walk. This wasn’t the nicest part of town.

At ten o’clock exactly, a heavy green Chevrolet van bounced to a stop in front of her. Lisa Snart was at the wheel. The side doors opened and her brother leaned out.

“Get in.”

She got in, slipping into a seat next to Caitlin. Snart and Mick Rory sat opposite them in the forward-facing seats. They weren’t armed, not that it made her feel any better. As soon as the door closed, the van lurched into motion.

“Where are we going?” Iris asked.

“To see Shawna,” Snart replied.

“How’d you find her?”

“Friend of Theo’s. Three nights ago he saw her arguing with a guy. She told him she was leaving and just vanished. The guy freaked out and ran. Ten minutes later, the bartender found her in an alley out back. Don’t drink and teleport, kids. He put her in a cab. Heard her address.”

Iris nodded. “Okay. Do you know what she can do?”

“I told him,” Caitlin said. She didn’t sound happy about it.

The van made a few random turns. Iris guessed Lisa was checking for any pursuit. There wouldn’t be any. However unhappy her father had been, they’d agreed on that.

Snart was watching her carefully. Rory was slumped in his seat, playing with a lighter. He glared at Iris for a second and then went back to watching the flame. In the seat next to her, Caitlin was tense and trying not to show it. Iris wondered what it was like spending a week with these people. She gave Caitlin a cautious look, and noticed Caitlin was pulling at her sleeve. It was twitch she’d developed wearing the heat collectors, but when she noticed Iris looking, she pulled her sleeve back far enough to reveal part of the improved version of her thermal suit. Iris breathed a little easier; if anything happened, she’d have Killer Frost at her side.

The van came to a stop. Lisa called, “We’re here.”

Despite all the turns and changes of direction, when Iris stepped out she realised they’d only moved over one street and she was standing at the corner of 76th and Hoover. This part of town was even less nice than the one they’d left. The five-storey apartment block opposite looked as though every part had been built by the lowest bidder, and they’d all been skimming. The outside walls were filthy, anywhere there was paint, it was peeling, and there was a smell in the air that indicated there was a slaughterhouse nearby. The people who lived there probably rented in advance by the day, because that was as far as the landlords and tenants would trust each other.

“Come on, Iris,” Lisa said. “Let’s go see if she’s home.”

“Why me?” Iris asked.

“She knows Doctor Snow,” Snart replied. “That just leaves you to identify her.”

“Don’t worry, Iris,” Lisa said. “I’ll do all the talking. We just have to get her door open, and once we know it’s her, the boys will do the rest.”

Iris looked at Caitlin, who gave her a stiff nod. “We’ll be ready.”

The Rogues got back in the van. Even in a part of the city with few cops, they were too conspicuous. She was surprised to see Caitlin in the driver’s seat; apparently she’d added wheel-woman to her improbably-long résumé.

Iris followed Lisa, knowing there were about a dozen ways to find out if someone lived in a particular apartment block when you didn’t have the exact address. She felt almost professional curiosity for which one Lisa would try. She should have been able to predict it was the loudest, most conspicuous one possible: storming into the lobby, hammering on the plastic partition and, when the landlord appeared, yelling, “Hey, where’s that bitch Shawna?”

“Who?”

“Shawna,” Lisa repeated, as if the narrow, balding man was simply going deaf. “Shawna Baez. I know she’s got my money.”

“What money?” the landlord asked, a spark of curiosity in his voice.

“ _My money_ ,” Lisa said. “All night she’s telling me she needs more for the rent, and then when I get home, there’s a hundred bucks gone from my purse. I told her if she ever did that again I’d kick her ass. So where is she?”

The landlord glanced away from her, at Iris. “And who’s that? A cop?”

“Do I look like a cop?” Iris managed to respond. “Where’s my sister?”

“Your sister?”

From the man’s expression, that was a step too far. They didn’t look that much alike, but Lisa was ready for it. “Half-sister,” she corrected.

Iris leaned past Lisa, playing the good cop. “Look, all she wants is to see Shawna and get her money back. No trouble. If Shawna owes any of it to you I’ll… I guess I can get it back from her later.”

The light in the landlord’s eyes got brighter. “She owes me thirty,” he said quickly enough he’d probably pulled the figure out of the air.

Iris carefully took a twenty and a ten out of her purse and held it up. The landlord went through one last moral spasm before avarice won out.

“Second floor. Number twelve.”

“Thank you.”

Iris handed over the money and headed for the stairs with Lisa. It wasn’t the first time she’d done something like that, but she’d done it for a story, not to cause someone harm. She was about to become party to a major felony. She could only tell herself she was doing this for Cisco so many times. Cisco had always liked Shawna. What would he say if he could see her? What would Barry?

No use wondering that now. They reached the second floor and it was simple enough to find number 12. The building was up to code enough to have fire stairs, and Iris concealed herself in those while Lisa rapped on the door.

After a few knocks, the door opened. Shawna Baez stuck her disorganised frizzy head out of it. She blinked at Lisa. Her skin had a sickly tinge and there were heavy bags under her eyes.

“Yeah?”

“Hi!” Lisa beamed at her. “I’m Lisa. I’m with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.”

“Not interested.”

The door closed surprisingly gently. Lisa turned to Iris, pouting as though the rejection had genuinely upset her.

“Mormons?” Iris said.

“Guaranteed to get the door slammed in your face, if that’s what you need,” Lisa explained. “Was that her?”

“Yeah.”

“Party girl,” Lisa remarked. “Wait here.”

She slipped past Iris and down the stairs. Iris kept her eyes on the corridor. Shawna’s door stayed shut. So did every other door in the corridor. Either everyone else was out or they were late risers.

The solitude only lasted for a few minutes, then she jumped as Caitlin tapped her on the shoulder. Rory was looming behind her.

“If she went out, she didn’t use the door,” Iris said.

Caitlin nodded. “Okay. Iris… I…”

“What?”

Caitlin sighed. “Nothing. Rory.”

Rory smiled. Iris could have gone her whole life without seeing that. “Keep watch,” he said.

He stepped out into the corridor and hunkered down in front of Shawna’s door. Iris stood on one side and Caitlin on the other, as he went to work with a couple of surprisingly delicate lock-picking tools.  The lock was as flimsy as everything else in the building, and it took less than a minute of silent work before the handle turned. They could hear Shawna moving slowly around the tiny apartment, groaning and muttering to herself.

Rory produced something from his pocket. Iris recognised the flashbang. He pulled the pin and rolled it gently into the apartment.

There was a split-second of silence. Then the grenade went off like a gunshot. It was louder than Iris was expecting, she felt it through the wall. The noise nearly drowned out Shawna’s shriek and the crash that followed it.

Rory burst through the door and crossed the small room in a single leap. Shawna was curled up beside the sink, her hands over her ears and her eyes squeezed shut. Rory seized her arms and wrenched them around. Caitlin knelt by her side and pulled a syringe out of her bag.

Shawna screamed and thrashed. “Hold her still!” Caitlin snapped.

Rory twisted one of the girl’s arms and dug his fingers in. Iris looked down at them, hardly believing what she was seeing as Caitlin stabbed the needle down. A second scream faded to a moan. Shawna’s body went limp.

Caitlin put the syringe away and looked up at Iris. There was agony in her eyes, and Iris swore she felt the temperature drop. But she didn’t have time to say or do anything, because Rory scooped Shawna off the ground and slung her over his shoulder.

“Come on!”

He charged out of the door as if he couldn’t feel the weight. Iris reflexively grabbed Caitlin’s chilly hand and followed. Survival instinct kept the other residents inside, so nobody saw them clatter down the stairs and out of the fire exit.

The van was waiting for them. Snart opened the door and Rory carelessly dumped Shawna at his feet. Iris jumped inside, pulling Caitlin along, and the wheels squealed as they fled.

Snart put duct tape around Shawna’s wrists and a cloth bag over her head. He made sure she was braced against the van’s wall and then sat back.

“Good work.”

Iris felt sick. She looked over at Caitlin.

“Caitlin…”

Caitlin cut her off. “I need to check on her.”

Despite the bumpy ride, she dropped to her knees next to Shawna. She counted the woman’s heartbeat and somehow managed to lean over enough to check her breathing. Shawna wasn’t exactly unconscious, she was shifting slightly but her movements were small and confused. Caitlin stayed with her for the whole of the trip, even when Iris had to catch her after one particularly violent left turn.

Finally, the van stopped and Lisa opened the door. Rory carried Shawna out into the abandoned bar that the Rogues had set up in. At the top of a flight of stairs was an office area. Snart pointed to a door and led them into one room that had been completely blacked out and almost emptied of furniture. The only fittings still left were a table and chairs in one corner. The table had a lamp on it, and a set of chairs against the opposite wall. Rory dropped Shawna at the table and taped her into place. Snart sat opposite her. Caitlin sat against the back wall and gestured for Iris to join her. For a few minutes, Rory and Lisa moved around the room, covering everything with black velvet curtains until there were no details and no outside illumination left.

Then the two of them left, switching off the room’s main light as they went. Iris blinked in the darkness. The only remaining illumination was from the little desk lamp casting shadows over Shawna’s body and the bag over her head. She realised that anyone sitting at the desk would be unable to see more than a foot in any direction.

Snart reached over and pulled off the bag. Shawna’s head swayed back and forth for a moment and then her eyes started focussing. She blinked at the light and looked desperately around at the encroaching shadows. She pulled at the tape holding her hands and feet. Then she looked across the table and froze.

“Hello Shawna,” Snart said. “You remember me.”

“Yeah,” she said breathlessly. “You’re Cold. What do you want?” She gave another pull at the chair. “What is this?”

“This is a conversation,” Snart replied. “I took some precautions so we could finish it. Wouldn’t want you disappearing.”

“What do you want?” Shawna repeated.

Her eyes were wide, despite the light shining into them. They could hear her breathing, speeding up as the tranquilisers wore off. Iris felt Caitlin go rigid in the seat next to her.

“Two nights ago you stole something from Mercury Labs,” Snart said, oblivious or indifferent to the turmoil his ‘guests’ were experiencing.

“No.” Shawna shook her head. “No way. I don’t do that anymore.”

“You do,” Snart said. “Not interested in what you took. Tell me what you did with it.”

“No,” Shawna protested. “It wasn’t me!”

Before Iris even knew she’d done it, Caitlin stood up and stepped forward into the light. “We know it was, Shawna.”

Shawna stopped breathing. She stared up at Caitlin, completely ignoring Snart. “You…” she whispered, and then all the fear twisted into rage. “You _bitch_!” She screamed. “You did this! Let me go! Let me fucking go! I’ll fucking kill you!”

Snart didn’t raise his voice. “Enough.”

Shawna cut off and looked back at him. “You’re with them? You’re a fucking _Rogue_? Are you like me now?” She let out a laugh full of acid. “So how do you like it? Spending every minute looking over your shoulder till the Flash puts you in a hole?”

Caitlin didn’t speak. Iris wished she could see her face, but she could see her friend’s hands by her side, trembling just out of everyone’s sight.

“Take a chair, Doctor Snow,” Snart said.

Caitlin mechanically pulled her chair up to the table and sat down. Iris quietly shifted around until she could get a better look at her face’s and Shawna’s too. She couldn’t see Snart’s, but she didn’t need to look at that smug smile anymore.

“You were at Mercury Labs,” Caitlin said. “I found a cell sample on the locker of the device you took. It came from a teleporter. You got into the security office, turned off the cameras, and took the device while… while we were breaking in. So the police would think we did it.”

Shawna shivered. She slumped slightly, but then glared across the table. “So what if I did? You’re not cops. Can’t a girl steal in Central City without your permission anymore?”

“Where’s the device?” Snart asked.

“Gave it to a friend.”

She was going for light-hearted, but missed by a long way. She wasn’t just scared because of Snart and the chair and the darkness. There was something else going on, and it terrified her.

Iris took a chance. She dragged her chair forward. Everyone turned to look at her. She ignored the other two and focussed on Shawna.

“Shawna, I’m Iris West. I’m with _Central City Picture News_.”

Shawna just tilted back her head and let out a laugh that was half way to a sob. “Okay. Great. You got _him_ back there too?”

“Shawna, we need your help,” Iris said. “All of us. Do you know a man called Doctor Edward Clariss?”

Shawna’s big eyes went even wider. A shiver went through her.

“He’s your friend,” Snart remarked.

“No,” Shawna said weakly. “No, he’s not.”

“But you did give the device to him,” Iris pressed. “Why? Did he pay you?”

Shawna shook her head desperately. “No. You don’t understand. I can’t…”

“Shawna, we can help you,” Caitlin said.

The fear was pushed back again. “You?” Shawna snapped. “What can you do? You have no idea!”

“Shawna, what is it?”

“He put a _fucking bomb_ in me!” Shawna screamed.

Iris reflexively grabbed Caitlin’s hand and squeezed. Her other hand covered her mouth. Caitlin’s own eyes went saucer-wide. Shawna slumped in the chair, her body shaking with sobs she was fighting to hold in. Then Iris looked over at Snart. She’d never seen him look like that before, and hoped she never would again.

“What happened?” he asked, and sounded almost gentle.

Shawna pulled herself up and leant her bound wrists on the table. “I met him at a bar one night. He bought me a drink. I picked it up but… I guess he must have fast hands. He put something in it. I woke up… after. He said he needed my help. He’d put a _thing_ in me, to track me. He got my cell number; said he’d call me. Said if I didn’t answer or if I left the city…”

“Oh my god,” Iris breathed.

“So what do you think you can do for me?” Shawna demanded.

“Will you let me look?” Caitlin asked. “I’ll be careful.”

Snart produced a pen-torch from his pocket. The man thought of everything. Iris took it and got up, along with Caitlin. Snart rose as well, slipping through the curtained door without a word. Iris looked at Caitlin, who gave a tiny shrug.

Shawna didn’t look like she cared. “Do it, if you’re going to. It’s in my back, on the left.”

Iris switched the torch on, but kept the light pointed at the floor until they were behind Shawna’s chair. Shawna leant forward and Caitlin gently pushed the back of her t-shirt up. Shawna flinched.

“Does that hurt?”

“No. Your hands. They’re cold.”

“Hold the light steady, Iris,” Caitlin instructed.

Iris followed the hem of the shirt as Caitlin pushed it upwards. She flinched involuntarily as they exposed a pale pink surgical scar in Shawna’s skin, starting beneath the ribcage and running upwards parallel to the spine. It was starting to heal, but the suture marks crossing it were still visible. Caitlin didn’t react, she kept going, following it upwards until it stopped a few inches higher. Looking closely, they could both see that the skin around the scar it was warped; there was something beneath it.

“This might sting,” Caitlin said gently.

She grazed her fingers across the skin around the scar, pressing gently. Iris saw Shawna tremble, but she didn’t make a sound. Caitlin traced the edges of the deformity, trying to get a sense of the implant. It was a few minutes before she gently pulled the shirt back down and straightened.

“How bad is it?” Shawna asked.

“Shawna…” Caitlin began.

“How bad _Doctor Snow_?”

“Whatever that is, it’s very close to your descending aorta,” Caitlin said, not a trace of emotion in her voice. “Even a tiny amount of combustible material could rupture it. If that happened… ninety percent of cases are fatal.”

Shawna was trembling. It was one thing to suspect, another thing to hear it confirmed. Iris desperately wanted to comfort her somehow, but the only other time she’d been near the woman was to knock her out so they could put her back in the Pipeline.

“Can you get it out?”

“I could remove it,” Caitlin said. “But I might trigger something if I tried.” She looked at Iris. “I’d need Cisco’s help.”

“Then get him!” Shawna shouted. “You fucking owe me! Help me!”

Snart slipped back into the room. Iris barely noticed that he had something under his arm. He glanced at Caitlin, who gave him a simple nod.

Caitlin looked at Iris, and Iris understood the unspoken plea. “Shawna…” she said. “The reason we’re looking for Doctor Clariss… he’s taken Cisco. We need to find him.”

“You kidnapped me because of _him_?”

Iris nodded, trying to keep the emotion from her face. The nausea had returned with a vengeance. She wanted to say she was sorry, that it had been necessary, but she knew that would only enrage Shawna further. And she’d be right.

She had no recourse but to keep asking questions. “Do you know where Clariss is?”

“No,” Shawna muttered. “I don’t remember anything. Just rooms.” She straightened. “If I knew where that bastard was I’d tell you. I don’t give a shit what you do to him.”

“Let me try,” Snart said.

While they talked, he’d been unfolding the equipment he’d brought in with him. It was a laptop with a strange device attached to it. It looked like a metal detector made from spare parts.

“What is that?” Iris asked.

“The device is tracking her location,” Snart replied. “It’s sending or receiving a signal. Find the source and you find Cisco.”

He laid the detector on the bench in front of Shawna and watched the screen. For nearly a minute, nothing happened, then the device’s lights started blinking and the computer screen flickered into life, beginning to dissect the signal it detected.

“That doesn’t look like a radio beacon,” Caitlin remarked.

“It’s not,” Snart said. “It’s UHF. A cell phone data packet.”

“Cell phone?” Shawna exclaimed.

“Sure,” Snart said. “A lost cell phone can be tracked. This is the same. That’s how he’ll know if you leave the city. It’s sending a signal to the network.”

“Could the network be relaying her location to him?” Iris asked.

“There are ways.”

Shawna shifted in her chair, trying to see the screen. “And I’m just supposed to sit here while you figure it out?”

“No,” Snart said. “You should go. Clariss could track you here.”

Shawna let out an astonished laugh. “That’s it? You’re just letting me walk?”

“We can find Clariss with this,” Snart replied. “We’ll know where to find you. Unless you’d rather stay.”

Shawna’s eyes widened. “No. Let me go.”

Snart knelt down by the chair. There was a ripping sound as he cut through the duct tape. Shawna barely waited for him to free her wrists before she jumped to her feet. She stared down at the three of them, clearly fighting the urge to run.

“Iris and Doctor Snow will see you out,” Snart said.

Shawna shifted on her feet as Iris and Caitlin stood. Caitlin pushed aside the curtain hiding the door and opened it. They were surprised to find Lisa and Rory standing in the corridor.

Lisa gave Shawna a smile that looked honest enough. “Hey. If you want company next time you’re at a bar, give me a call.”

She held out a card. Shawna stared at it for a moment and then snatched it. She clearly wanted to run but didn’t want anyone to see her afraid. She was rigid as Caitlin let her downstairs, and only visibly relaxed as the club’s door opened and she could hear the sound of the street.

“Shawna,” Caitlin said. “I’m sorry. When we get Cisco back, if you let us, I’ll get that thing out of you. I swear.”

Shawna looked at Caitlin for a moment. “You’re really a doctor?”

“I am,” Caitlin said, and Iris wondered if she’d heard her hesitate over what tense to use.

“You took the Hippocratic Oath, right?”

“I did,” Caitlin said.

Shawna straightened up to the point where she was comfortably taller than Caitlin, then she leaned over and said in a savage whisper, “You fucking broke it.”

Then she turned, took two quick steps out of the door, and vanished.

“Caitlin…” Iris said.

“No,” Caitlin cut her off, so much pain hidden under the word. “Later. Right now, we need to track that signal, find out where it’s going. Find Cisco.”

“Okay,” Iris said. “But we’ll have to hack into the cell network to do it. And I don’t think the Rogues could help us there. Even if they felt like it.”

Caitlin nodded. “I know. We need to go back to STAR Labs.”


	14. Always Faithful

The Cortex smelt of dust. The silence was eerie. Even when there was nobody working there, Cisco had always left the systems on standby and the hum of the machines could be heard throughout the building. White sheets covered the consoles like a shroud.

Iris told herself this had been necessary, just like everything else they’d done in the last two months. STAR Labs had been their rallying point but it had also been a target. They’d been so paranoid that a penetration of their system would give away the ruse that the team had been broken. Even Felicity couldn’t hack a computer that was unplugged and switched off.

She helped Caitlin remove the dust sheets, fold them neatly and put them in the medical lab. They could worry about the dust later. She stood back and watched the other woman walk a careful route around the room, following a pattern she’d learned from either her husband or best friend, gently flicking switches and pressing buttons.

In the silence, Iris felt the air whisper into motion. The readouts flickered and then steadied themselves. One by one, the monitors blinked on. She could feel the building itself humming with renewed energy. STAR Labs wasn’t dead, it only slept. And now it was waking up.

“He should be here for this,” Caitlin muttered.

She was smiling, just a little. It made sense. She was home again.

“He should,” Iris agreed, and then wondered who they were talking about.

With the computers warmed up, they ran a virus scan and waited an anxious ten minutes to check for any obvious intruders. Nothing. Then it was time to access one of the Felicity-brand backdoors into the cell phone network. It took longer than it might have done; they were both a little out of practice.

The next step was to upload the sample signal that Snart had given them into a totally isolated part of the server. It sat there for a little while, being examined by the virus scanner to make sure it wasn’t potentially hostile. When they were certain it wasn’t, it was escorted through the firewall into the main system, where they activated a program that had originally been designed as a virus search. It had been adapted to track specific packets of information moving through networks. It spread out through the cell nodes, searching for the signals broadcast by Shawna’s tracker and quietly feeding the information back to the lab computer.

There was nothing they could do but wait while the program ran. Iris went out for food and called her dad with an update. Caitlin wouldn’t leave the computer in case something happened.

Finally, just after Caitlin finished the sandwich that Iris had forced her to eat, the trace was complete. Looking at it, they understood why it had taken so long: the data packets were being bounced around every cell tower in the city, sometimes more than once. They had to comb through the data three times before they saw where the chain ended.

“Look at this,” Caitlin said. “The tower at the northeast edge of the city doesn’t transmit the signal back into the network. It re-broadcasts it through the east-facing antenna using the lowest frequency that antenna can generate.”

“Okay…” Iris said. “What does that mean?”

“The lower the frequency, the greater the range,” Caitlin explained. She typed for a moment. “There’s minimal interference east of the city, but even then, that a signal sent that way could only cover about fifty miles.”

“How do we know it isn’t being re-transmitted again?” Iris asked.

“There’s no other trace of the packet in these nodes,” Caitlin replied. “And inter-city signals are sent from the southern towers to the ones that run along the interstate.” She gave Iris an apologetic look. “I checked the network map while you were gone.”

 “Cisco will be so happy when you tell him.”

Caitlin’s smile was wide but brittle. She went back to the computer, trying to determine the directional cone of the signal. Meanwhile, Iris brought up their map of the area around Central City and adjusted the scale until the area reached by the transmission could be accurately layered over it.

They weren’t called the Badlands for nothing. Once you were clear of the greener hills and far enough from the river, the land around Central City became high, dry and desolate. The only real towns huddled around the interstate for survival. The rest were gone. Iris had vague memories of geography class and a field trip out to one of the mines that had turned itself into a museum when the gold ran out. There were a few roads, but it had been a long time since they went anywhere.

“You could hide anything out there,” she told Caitlin.

“That just means it’ll be easier to see from the satellite,” Caitlin said.

They had to wait another half an hour for the STAR Labs satellite to appear over the horizon, and then it went to work on the target area, aiming down cameras that covered almost every frequency detectable with the accuracy of a spy-plane. The relayed information showed them something that was far too regular to the whim of wind erosion.

Forty-two miles east of the city was an almost perfectly grid of unnaturally flattened ground and concrete. In between those lines were over a dozen distinct buildings and a few more that seemed to overlay each other on the picture. Several of them were slightly brighter, using power and probably air conditioning. Iris also thought she could see the single coloured pixels which might represent warm engines.

“That has to be military,” she said.

Caitlin nodded. “It’s too well organised to be anything else.”

They zoomed in, trying to see as much detail as they could through the resulting distortions. Iris marvelled that there were people who did this for a living. Of course, these days, they mainly got attention when they were wrong.

“There’s the road in.” She indicated the faint line that led from the nearest lost highway to what they both hoped was the base’s main entrance.

“I think there’s another trail there,” Caitlin said, pointing to the northern side of the map. “I guess there used to be a mine. See? It goes from the highway to some old buildings there. Just over the hill from the base. It’s probably drivable.”

“But you’d never get in that way,” Iris pointed out. “They’d have to have… towers and cameras, right?” She was imagining Area 51 on a local scale. “If this place is so secret, they wouldn’t want anyone sneaking in.”

Caitlin stared at the map for a few seconds. “That’s not what I’m thinking.”

“What are you thinking?”

Caitlin told her. Iris’ mouth fell open. She didn’t know what was more shocking; the plan or the fact that Caitlin had come up with it.

“Caitlin, that’s crazy,” she said. “That’s like something Oliver… how do you know it will even work?”

“Look at the size of the base,” Caitlin replied. “There can’t be more than one or two hundred Marines there. If they are Marines. They’ll be spread out. It’ll be dark. They’ll be confused, they won’t know what’s really going on, and they won’t want to shoot each other by accident. And even if they figure out… they’ll want Cisco back alive. I hope.”

“You’ll still need the Rogues’ help,” Iris pointed out.

Caitlin took out one of her cell phones and dialled a number. It rang out. Iris started to speak but Caitlin held up her hand, and the phone started ringing.

“Snart, we know where Cisco is. There’s a military base forty miles from the city in the Badlands. I’ll need a diversion at the front gate to get in. After that, you can fall back. Once I’ve found to Cisco, I’ll get him to Iris on the north side of the base and then come back to you. Are you interested?” There was a long pause, then she said, “Thank you.”

“He agreed?” Iris asked.

“Yeah,” Caitlin said quietly. “He says I owe him for this.”

To shake her out of contemplating what that might mean one day, Iris said, “And you didn’t tell him about the backup?”

“Are you calling?” Caitlin asked, playing Devil’s Advocate.

Iris nodded firmly. “It’s time.”

Buried deep in the Cortex computer, behind two layers of encryption and a password only three people knew was a string of numbers. Anyone who didn’t understand what they were for would have been surprised to learn that, once decoded, they were simply a cell phone number.

Iris accessed the numbers and put them into the computer rather than her own cell, just to make sure they reached their destination. And then she sent the message. The emergency code. Thorn. 

* * *

The last light had faded from the sky by the time Caitlin found herself in sight of the base. She crouched by the side of the road, just as it dropped into a dip and ran straight for another quarter mile towards the gate. She carefully raised a set of high-power binoculars and looked at the group of buildings spread out inside the little basin. They were all long, low rectangles but seemed to be made out of stone rather than metal, making her wonder how long the base had been there. They were lit from outside but there were still plenty of shadows in between them. Even so, it was hard to tell exactly how far they stretched or what was behind the front few rows. She did her best to compare her mental image of the satellite photo with what she saw in front of her, but the base was bigger than she’d been expecting, making it hard to get the details to line up.

It was clear that visitors were not welcome. A mile behind her were a cluster of ‘No Admittance’, ‘Keep Out’ and ‘Danger’ signs. There was a high chain-link fence following the base’s perimeter and that was topped by barbed wire. There were also towers at the corners, and she guessed a guard or two in each. The people she could see all wore uniforms, but there didn’t seem to be any patrols. Of course, they might have cameras and dogs for that.  

All that was assuming she could get inside, which seemed the hardest part. The gate was a heavy extension of the fence that slid back and forth to block the road. There was a guard booth on each side and she could see two more people standing at the gate itself. Beyond the gate was a parking lot for heavy trucks and another, slightly elevated area that she was starting to think might be a helipad.

She stayed for ten minutes, watching and making plans, then straightened up and checked the contents of her satchel for the fifth time, just to make sure she wasn’t missing anything. Then she walked back up the road to where Lisa’s convertible was parked next to Snart’s van and reported what she’d seen.

When she was finished, Rory looked at Snart. “Well?”

“We go. After the gate is cleared, we hit the vehicles in the lot and the first row of buildings, then fall back. Thirty seconds. No more. And zero fatalities. Wound if you have to. We don’t kill anyone.”

“You ready for this, Katie?” Lisa asked.

Caitlin really didn’t think she was, but she nodded anyway. She checked her thermal collectors, now concealed beneath a leather jacket she’d borrowed from Lisa, and took a few breaths of the warm night air. She suddenly found herself missing her wig.

“Alright,” Lisa said. “Len, come up behind us when you see the fireworks start.”

Snart nodded. Lisa climbed into the convertible and checked herself in the mirror. Caitlin got in the other side. Lisa grinned. Caitlin just tried to relax. So this is what it felt like to be Thelma and Louise.

Lisa started the car, flipped all the lights on and found a radio station full of static to accompany them as she drove slowly and calmly down the road towards the gate with the top down. Caitlin tensed as she saw the guards straighten up, check their weapons, and start walking towards them. The ones in the booths stayed put.

The Marines raised their hands away from their slung carbines and waved the car down. Lisa came to an obedient stop.

“Ma’am, this is a restricted area. I’m going to have to ask you to turn the car around.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Lisa said. “I’m just so lost. Katie and I have been driving around these back roads for hours.”

“Ma’am, please turn the car around.”

“Sure, sure,” Lisa said. “I don’t want to get you in trouble. Can you please just help us find the interstate?”

The Marine on her side looked at the one on Caitlin’s. That one, who had now got close enough for Caitlin to realise was female, gave a dismissive shrug.

“I’ll be so grateful,” Lisa said.

Caitlin doubted it was the slightly flirtatious tone and more the guard’s desire to get rid of them that tipped the scale. He took another two steps towards the car and bent down to see the thing in Lisa’s lap he’d mistaken for a map.

Lisa’s door burst open, catching the Marine in the knees. He stumbled backwards, and before he could recover, Lisa jumped out of the car and gave him a vicious kick between the legs.

All that had happened while Caitlin was fumbling with her door handle. The guard on her side was raising her gun when Caitlin slammed her backwards with a blast of icy air. Caitlin made it the rest of the way out of the car as a bolt of gold hit the cameras above the fence.

Something collided with her from behind. Lisa. The other woman wrenched them both around so that Lisa could fire at one of the booths and seal it shut, while Caitlin sent a frozen gale into the other one, smashing its occupant down and freezing radio and monitoring equipment inside.

They spun around again so Lisa could finish off the first guard, but as she turned, Caitlin saw the one from the gold-coated booth fight his way out. She twisted her arms and managed to catch him with a side-long gust that hurled him head over heels into the fence.

The night was suddenly still and quiet. The loudest sound Caitlin could hear was her own breathing. Her knees felt weak, if it weren’t for the support of Lisa’s back, she might have collapsed.

Behind her, Lisa laughed. “Come on, Katie. Tell me that wasn’t fun.”

Caitlin gave her a look absolute incredulity, but she had no time to answer. A van engine howled as the other vehicle bore down on them. It swerved around the stationary convertible and went straight for the gate. Lisa shrieked with glee as her brother leaned out of the passenger window and fired the Cold Gun into the fence. He had just enough time to get back inside before the van struck the barrier and shattered it. Then it lurched, turning and skidding to a stop inside the base.

“Come on, Katie!” Lisa grabbed hold of Caitlin’s hand and pulled her through the wrecked gate.

They could hear shouting in the distance. An alarm began to screech through the night.

“Go, Doctor Snow!” Snart yelled. Then, “Mick!”

“Good luck, Katie,” Lisa said.

Caitlin gave her one more astonished look and then ran for the buildings. Behind her, she heard the Heat Gun roar. She glanced over her shoulder in time to see the beam sweep over the trucks parked in the lot. There was a muffled thud as one of the gas tanks detonated, throwing the heavy vehicle onto another, which had so far remained untouched. Snart and Lisa were firing at the buildings to her right, trying to block any likely approach paths. Rory was laughing and incinerating anything within range.

Caitlin found thin alleyway between two of the structures and dived into it. Away from the fire and explosions, she could hear the sound of pounding feet and the alarms. She stopped for a moment and then ran to the left, trying to put some distance between herself and the chaos at the gate. Her knees were starting to ache, and that forced her to slow down, trying to marshal her out-of-control breathing before she went any further. She pulled her hair back, to give her fingers something to do and to keep it out of her eyes.

There was sound all around her, but none of it seemed to be focussed on the little patch of darkness where she was concealed. She risked another movement, heading twenty or thirty yards to the north, sheltering next to a long, hall-like building. A squad of armed Marines charged past, heading for the Rogues, but she dropped to the ground, holding tightly to her bag so it wouldn’t clatter, and they went right passed her. They’d emerged from a building she guessed was the armoury, so she crept in the opposite direction.

She found herself next to what she hoped were empty or disused barracks. She’d come far enough to get away from the diversion, but had completely lost her bearings between the darkness and the identikit buildings. But that was irrelevant, since she had no idea of the layout of the base anyway.

Time was of the essence, so she opened the bag and pulled out the parabolic microphone that she’d borrowed from Joe. She fumbled on the headphones and started slowly sweeping it around, hoping that they’d been right in assuming that Clariss was using the sound suppression machine to block Cisco’s powers.

Everything towards the gate was blotted out by a wall of confused noise. She kept turning, passing air conditioners, jogging steps, indistinguishable voices and rumble of a large refrigerator. Then the device caught a strange, low hum, like static on a detuned television. It seemed to be coming from one specific direction, so she headed that way.

The buildings were more spaced out here, so it wasn’t hard to find the source. It was a small structure that could have been designed for a senior officer’s quarters. She checked with the microphone one more time, just to be sure, and then edged around the shadow perimeter to find the door. There was an armed guard standing in front of it.

There was ten feet of open ground between her and the entrance. The guard was turning his head, peering into the shadows. He knew she was there. That left no time for subtlety. Caitlin slipped a retractable truncheon out the bag and sprang into the light.

The guard spun and raised his weapon. The icy wind from the collectors drove him back into the wall of the building, pinning him there, numbing his gloved fingers before they could reach the trigger. Caitlin didn’t let up till she was almost on top of him, letting him drop and driving the truncheon into one knee as hard as she could. The leg buckled and she felt herself striking and two blows to the Marine’s helmeted head. He hit the ground at her feet and didn’t move.

Caitlin numbly put the truncheon away and pulled back the bolt holding the door closed. There was a light on inside. There was a bed, which was empty, and a single chair. Cisco was slumped in it. His face was bruised and from the doorway she couldn’t tell if he was breathing.

It took all her self-control to close the door behind her, cross the room one cautious and quiet step at a time, and kneel in front of him.

“Cisco?” she whispered. “Cisco, wake up. It’s Caitlin.”

He didn’t react. She felt something cracking inside her. She had no idea what she would do if he didn’t wake up.

She pressed a hand under his chin, searching for a pulse, fighting to keep herself together. “Cisco… please…”

He shivered, flinched away from her touch, and his eyes opened. “Caitlin?”

She nearly sobbed. “Yeah. It’s me, Cisco. We have to get out of here.”

He blinked. “You’re rescuing me? How?”

“It’s a long story,” Caitlin said, pushing all her feelings down and focussing on the escape plan. “We don’t have much time. Can you walk?”

Cisco took a breath. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so. You have to cut me loose.”

Caitlin scrambled behind his back, dug a knife out of her bag and cut the plastic cuffs. Without their support, Cisco nearly fell forward out of the chair. He managed to catch himself just in time, but let out a squeak of pain, and then another one as he moved his shoulders.

“What is it?”

“Just my leg. Hurts a little.”

She shifted around so she could help him stand. When she put her hand on his chest, he winced again. Before he could stop her, she’d pulled up his t-shirt to see the bruises beginning to form.

“Oh my god,” she breathed.

“It’s nothing,” Cisco insisted, squeezing his eyes shut as he pushed himself to his feet. “They just asked me some questions.”

He took a step, winced, and Caitlin had to wrap her arm around his side for support. She slipped under his other arm and they took a few slow steps towards the door.

“And?” she asked, if only for a distraction.

“And… I didn’t answer them.”

They made it out of the door. The guard was still there, but he was started to move. Caitlin fumbled for her compass, but before she could find it, she heard voices behind them. A torch swept across the building opposite.

Acting as a single injured, distorted creature, they took off down the path at almost a run. Caitlin stumbled with uneven footsteps, fighting to keep hold of her grip on Cisco. He was almost hopping alongside her, his body bouncing against hers and constantly threatening to knock them both off balance. She could hear his muffled gasps of pain as the motion jarred his injuries.

Her grip on him slipped and he fell to the ground on his hands and knees. “Just go,” he hissed.

“Not without you!” she responded. She hadn’t come through all this to leave him behind now.

She looked around. She thought she recognised some of the buildings she’d passed earlier. They were running parallel to the fence rather than towards it. There were still lights following them, and there were other steps approaching from off to her right.

They couldn’t run. The only option was to hide.

She didn’t know where she found the strength, but she was able to haul Cisco upright and start pulling him towards the nearest building. It was dark inside and she prayed that made it empty.

It was, but even in the dim light she could tell there was nowhere to hide. Just a row of metal shelves, a few sinks and some big steel tables that offered no cover at all. But there was a door at the far end.

Cisco saw it too, and he was ready this time, hopping alongside her across the tiled floor. The door was big, heavy and had a single handle. They pulled with all their strength, dragging it open and tumbling through.

The floor they landed on was slick and slippery. Rows of silver shelves stretched away into the shadows. Caitlin took a breath of hard air, tinged with the scent of blood.

She had just enough time to realise her mistake before the door of the industrial freezer slammed behind them.

* * *

Colonel Black was at her desk when the alarm went off. She reached the door a few seconds later and looked out of the window in time to see a tongue of fire burst into the air from the direction of the gate.

“What the hell is that?”

A few seconds later, the base PA answered her question. “Fire at main gate. Fire at main gate. This is not a drill.”

By the time she reached the front of the building, the base personnel were already turning out. She’d put them through enough fire drills that they would know what to do.

Staff Sergeant Rico approached the building at a flat run. She came to a stop in front of Black and raised her voice enough to be heard over the alarm. “They’ve set fire to the parking lot, ma’am.”

“They?” Black repeated.

“There’s a man at the gate with a fucking flamethrower. Ma’am. I counted three vehicles on fire. Two other hostiles. Maybe three.”

“Colonel!” They both turned as Clariss and Hunter ran towards them. “Colonel!” Clariss shouted breathlessly. “It’s the Rogues! It’s Heatwave!”

“Doctor,” Black snapped. “For Christ’s sake, don’t call them that.”

“Sorry,” Clariss panted. “Mick Rory. He’s got the Heat Gun. A mini flamethrower, like she said. And if he’s here then Snart’s here too.”

“Lieutenant!” Black shouted at a passing man. “Get the fire under control, then take a platoon down the road and make sure they’re gone.” She turned back to Clariss. “What are they doing?”

Clariss hesitated. “Cisco! They want Cisco! I’ve got to check on him!”

“You stay here, doctor!” Black ordered. “Staff sergeant, check the boy.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rico said, and disappeared.

Black turned back to the two scientists. “We are fifty miles from the city in the middle of the Badlands. He’s been here for two goddamn days. How the hell did they find us?”

Clariss looked helplessly at Hunter. The older man just shrugged. “Maybe he knew already.”

“If he did, doctor, then you’ve been very fucking stupid,” Black said.

“Colonel…”

Rico interrupted him before she could. “The kid’s gone, ma’am. His guard needs a corpsman.”

“Serious?”

“No, ma’am.”

“He was right,” Clariss said. “They wanted him back.”

“They can’t use the main gate, ma’am,” Rico said.

“Then they’ll go for a hole in the fence,” Clariss responded. “The fire’s a just a diversion. But as soon as they get out, they’ll show up on the thermal cameras, won’t they?”

“One of them won’t,” Hunter said.

Black turned to him in confusion, wondering how he knew that. Clariss went white with shock.

“Killer Frost,” he breathed.

“Doctor Snow’s body temperature isn’t high enough to trip the alert algorithm,” Hunter said. “She’s probably colder than the air tonight.”

“And just how the fuck does that work?” Rico demanded.

“It doesn’t matter,” Black said. “Tell Lieutenant Herrick that the fire has priority. Then gear up and find the boy and whoever’s with him.” She took a breath. “Take them out.”

“Colonel!” Clariss protested.

“No, doctor. I’m cleaning up your goddamn mess. You understand, staff sergeant?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rico said.

She turned and ran into the night.

* * *

Cisco hit the door with the strongest boom he could muster. The metal groaned and he thought he saw the vibrations shivering through the walls of the freezer. He desperately threw his shoulder against the door, but it still wouldn’t budge.

“That’s… got to be some… kind of health and safety violation,” he hissed.

He tried to smile. The cold burned his lips. With every breath it gnawed at his lungs. He couldn’t feel his fingers, or his exposed arms. He could barely even feel the bruises anymore. All he could feel was the cold.

“I kinda wish your friend Louise was here now…” he said through chattering teeth. “How long do you think we have?”

Then he realised Caitlin hadn’t made a sound since they’d been locked inside. He turned, almost losing his balance on the icy floor. She was standing a few feet behind him, arms by her sides. Even in the darkness, he could see how pale she’d become. She hadn’t been that pale since the accident.

“Caitlin? Caitlin?”

She blinked sleepily at him. “Cisco? Cisco, the cold. The… capacitor’s almost drained. I can’t… there’s nowhere to pull heat.”

In a panic, he turned and hit the door again. The boom was weaker this time. It was getting hard to concentrate. He had no idea what this temperature was doing to Caitlin. She couldn’t generate her own heat, she had to rely on her suit pulling it from the environment. And now there wasn’t any.

“Stay with me, Caitlin.”

He grabbed both of her hands. They were freezing but he held on anyway.

“Cisco, stop!” she snapped, her eyes suddenly focussing. “Stop!”

His arms might as well not exist below the elbow but the will to hold on came from somewhere. Then she pulled her arms back and slipped from his numb grip. She backed away. Cisco shoved his hands into his armpits, trying to get some of the feeling back. The cold was like daggers now.

“What about the door?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Booms… go through the walls. Can’t focus. But…” A memory surfaced. “The hinges. You could freeze the hinges.”

“I don’t… think I can.” She was starting to look woozy again.

“You did it before!” Cisco responded, shifting around on his one good leg, trying to keep moving without slipping. “Come on. I saw you at Palmer Tech.”

Catlin shook her head slowly. “Brass. Those… are steel.”

“You can do it. The collectors can.”

“Don’t think I can… control it. I’m… having… trouble concentrating.”

Cisco stepped forward. “Then I’ll warm you up.”

That got through enough to focus her, and she almost recoiled. “Absolutely not. In here… I could kill you.”

He couldn’t feel the cold anymore, and realised that was probably a very bad thing. He couldn’t tell if it was his imagination, but the locker seemed to be getting darker.

“I’ll die anyway,” he said. “At least… this way one of us gets out.”

“No!” Caitlin spat back. “No! I’m not… doing this again!”

“Then freeze the door! You’re Killer Frost, aren’t you?”

Caitlin took an uncertain step closer. “She’s evil.”

Cisco shook his head, setting off a cascade of shivers through his entire body. “Not… here. Here… she’s a hero.”

She gave him a hard look he just couldn’t fathom. Perhaps if he’d been warmer he’d have understood it, but she didn’t give him the chance. She stepped past him and reached out towards the door. She sagged against it, holding her palms a few inches away from the hinges. Cisco wondered if he could see ice thickening on them.

“You can do it,” he whispered. “You can do it. Even… hardened steel freezes at… umm…”

He couldn’t remember. The thought slipped away. It wasn’t as low as people thought, but he couldn’t remember how low.

“If this… doesn’t work…” she whispered.

“It’ll… work.”

“If it… doesn’t…” She turned her head towards him, eyes barely open and he hardly heard her next words. “I really… missed you…”

Caitlin slumped forward. He was just fast enough to catch her. It was like holding a block of ice but he held her anyway. He felt like he’d never be warm again. The cold was deep inside him now. Was this what she felt like all the time?

Heat. He needed heat from somewhere. But there wasn’t anything. Nothing to warm them. Nothing to burn. No light. No energy. Just the cold.

Or was there?

Energy. Heat was just energy. Thermodynamics, Hunter had said. The relationship between heat and energy. Energy and vibrations.

It was so hard to concentrate. His mind was full of fog again, but again he fought back. He concentrated, trying to feel the vibrations, not of the universes or the sound of their shallow breathing or the tremors that made up the booms, but the buzzing of Caitlin’s molecules against each other. He could feel her heartbeat slowing and her breathing becoming fainter, but he pushed that aside and looked deeper. Deeper than the blood in her veins or the air in her lungs or the fading sparks of consciousness leaping through her brain.

Down further and further to a world where everything was half real and half imagined, but whatever it was, it was all in motion.

Perhaps it was desperation, perhaps because he was poised right on the line between life and death, but he could feel it now. He could feel the motion and he could feel it slowing as everything became colder. One day that would be the fate of everything, the whole universe. But not today. He willed it to vibrate, to move, to speed up and be warm.

“Cisco?” Her voice and somehow it must be working. “What are you doing?”

She felt so far away. Everything did. He had to fight not to slip back up, to stay in that little world of bouncing molecules.

“Later…” he hissed. “Now… door.”

Some part of him felt her nod and he could see it now. See the vibrations as the collectors went to work, pulling the ripples away from the metal and through Caitlin’s body. It felt like her atoms were singing to him.  

His grip slipped. The world was contracting to a point. He had to let go or he’d be trapped down there. The body he came back to was barely shivering. He swayed away from Caitlin and took a stumbling step towards the door.

“My… turn…”

The hinges burned against his palms. He spent all his concentration on the boom and Caitlin had to pull him back just as the metal shattered.

He couldn’t even move his fingers enough to grip the edge of the door, but she could. She hauled it open and the air outside felt like fire. Caitlin grabbed him by the arm and she was still so cold. Her collectors must have been draining all the heat out of the air around them as they hurried out of the kitchen.

He finally felt the warmth as they got outside. It was as much a blow as the freezer had been. It set him off shivering again. He almost shivered out of Caitlin’s grip as she pulled him along.

Some part of him remembered that they were in trouble and probably being chased, but it seemed a long way away and not very important now. They’d reached the edge of the base and, for the first time in what seemed like forever, Cisco could see the stars.

* * *

Iris squinted at her watch. It glowed faintly, matching the starlight. Twenty minutes since she’d heard the first explosion. Twenty minutes and no sign of Caitlin or Cisco. How long should she wait? What would happen if there was a patrol? She found herself wondering if any of them read CCPN. Apparently there were disadvantages to being a well-known reporter.

She heard the crunch of disturbed stones. It didn’t sound like a military boot, but she couldn’t be sure. She crouched down in the shadow of the low rise, trying not to move in case any of the Marines out here had low-light goggles. The sound came again, and the noise of fast breathing. There was a rush of cold wind, and that was what convinced her it was safe to stand.

“Caitlin!” she hissed.

Two shadows were momentarily silhouetted against the star-bright sky and then they stumbled towards her.

“Iris!”

Cisco practically fell into her arms. She caught him and nearly recoiled. He was freezing cold, shivering in the warm night. His skin felt like ice against hers and she pulled him against her, rubbing his back in an attempt to generate some friction.

“What the hell happened?”

“Long… story…” Cisco muttered into her neck through chattering teeth.

Iris looked over his shoulder at Caitlin. She was just above visible, standing very still a few feet away. Deliberately keeping herself out of reach. Iris wished she could see her face.

“We have to go,” Caitlin said.

Iris was shivering too. She let go of Cisco and helped him towards the car. Caitlin consented to come close enough to prop him up on the other side. He was limping quite badly and didn’t seem to want to breathe too deeply.

Luckily the car – a four-by-four her dad had borrowed from the pool – was close. Iris pulled open the door the faint light washed over them. There was just enough to see the bruises on Cisco’s face.

“Jesus, what did they do to him?” she whispered.

“I’ll… live,” Cisco mumbled. “You… got a blanket?”

He crawled onto the back seat under his own power. Iris went to the trunk to find the rug she’d stored there. Caitlin followed her.

“Iris… they tortured him,” she said, quiet and firm, but Iris could hear everything she was holding back. “I think it was just a beating but I didn’t have time to check. You have to get him to a doctor. Call Louise. We got trapped in a freezer, that’s why he’s so cold…”

“Caitlin, it’s okay, you got him out,” Iris said.

“Take him to Louise,” Caitlin repeated.

“Come with us.”

Caitlin gave a quick, decisive shake of the head. “I can’t. I promised Snart. They’re waiting for me. Please, Iris, go!”

Iris grabbed one of Caitlin’s chilly hands in hers. “You’ve done enough. Tell Snart we’re finished. We’ll bring you home.”

Caitlin smiled, really smiled. She gently slipped her hand free and then backed away into the dark. Iris closed the trunk and threw the blanket over Cisco, then jumped into the driver’s seat and started the car. The noise sounded horribly loud, but there was nothing Iris could do about that. She put her foot down as hard as she dared and they started bouncing along the trail back towards the highway.

Cisco pushed himself up on the back seat. “Where’s Caitlin?”

Iris flipped on the headlights and switched on the rear heater for good measure. “She couldn’t come. But we’re getting her out. I promise.”

Cisco’s reply was lost in the car’s next lurch. Even with the headlights on, Iris nearly missed the shallow turn to the left. Despite the four-wheeled drive, the Ford fought back as she forced it around, trying to remember what her dad had told her about slippery terrain.

She glanced over, instinctively checking her mirrors, and saw something outside the passenger window. Something black and smooth, lit by the reflected headlamps, and then it was gone.

“Cisco… did you see that?”

Then it was on her side. A shadow passed the car. Something was caught on the edge of the cone of light ahead, but too quickly to be seen.

“Cisco what is that?”

“Oh no…” Cisco moaned.

“What?”

“The Racer,” Cisco muttered. “Pet… speedster.”

“ _What_?”

The air around her suddenly roared. Something tore its way through the rear window, between the seats and through the windshield. Iris instinctively ducked, and then looked back up at the cobweb of shattered glass and the bullet hole that had caused it.

They couldn’t be more than a few miles from the highway. Iris put her foot down just as another bullet ripped through the rear door. The next shattered one of the back windows as the car bounced, spraying broken glass over Cisco.

Iris glanced into her mirror. Lit red by the rear lights, a figure in black was running along the road after them. It raised a gun, fired again, and more glass crashed inwards.

“Cisco stay down!” she called.

Ignoring her, Cisco dragged himself upright. The blanket billowed in the draft as he focussed and threw a boom through the remains of the back window.

Iris heard another shot and Cisco slumped down. She shrieked his name, trying to keep her eyes on the road.

“I’m okay...” he called back.

“Stay down!”

She risked a look behind her. The speedster was gone. Then she turned back and saw the shadow looming on the road ahead.

She ducked and slammed her foot onto the brakes. The windshield shattered and she felt the shots pass over her head. Then the car slewed around as one of the tires gave way. The whole vehicle shuddered and she clung to the wheel for dear life. Everything titled, Cisco yelled something, and there horrible moment before the world righted itself with a final sickening crack.

Iris found herself resting against the steering wheel. Her hands were shaking. She looked out of the ruined windshield and saw nothing but half-lit scrubland stretching away in front of her. To her right was the road to safety. It was empty.

She wrenched at her safety belt and managed to get her trembling fingers onto the release. She almost fell out of the car, but kept her feet enough to haul the rear door open.

“Cisco! Cisco we’ve got to try and run!”

“What?” He looked at her like she’d lost her mind.

“It can’t see in the dark, can it? Come on!”

It was too late. She felt the wind behind her, the whoosh of something moving fast over the ground, and then the figure in black, the Racer, was standing on the road in front of her. Iris instinctively shifted to the side, putting herself between the speedster and the door.

“I’m Iris West!” she called. “ _Central City Picture News_. Who are you?”

The Racer’s gun came up, aimed at her heart. “Where is Cisco Ramon?”

The voice, distorted by the helmet, was definitely female. Iris suddenly realised that if she assumed that the black suit was armoured in some way, then the person inside was quite small and slight.

Iris raised her hands. “Who are you?” she repeated, risking a step forward.

“Iris!” Cisco hissed.

“I’m going to count to three,” the Racer said.

Iris smiled. “You won’t have that long.”

She could only imagine the expression of confusion on the hidden face. “What?”

“Look behind you,” Iris said.

There was a flash of light in the distance, reflecting off the helmet’s visor as the Racer turned. It hurtled out of the darkness towards them, blazing like a comet. And then night caught fire as a tornado of golden lightning swept around the Racer, driving her back down the road and away from the car. The Racer tried to fight, striking and firing wildly into the wall of energy around her.

Then the light went out. Iris blinked wildly, trying to see through the afterimages. Everything had gone quiet. She smelled cordite and burned rubber.

Then her vision cleared. One on side of the road stood the Racer. And on the other, smoke rising from his shoes, stood Barry Allen.

“You missed me.”

Barry opened his hand. Three spent bullets dropped into the dust at his feet.

The Racer didn’t speak. The small figure was coiled like spring.

“Do you want to fight, or do you want to run?” Barry asked.

There was another flicker in the darkness. Blue and white lights from the car that had just come over the rise.

“That’s the cavalry,” Barry said.

The Racer sprang off the road and vanished into the night with a speed that put would have put a racing car to shame. She left nothing but a trail of dust in her wake.

Iris didn’t even wait for the sound to fade. She crossed the distance between them in what felt like a heartbeat and threw her arms around Barry. There were no words for how good it felt being able to bury her face in his shirt, hear his humming heart and feel the tingle of lightning under his skin. She’d missed him so much.

He held on to her just as tightly. “Are you okay?” he whispered. “I was afraid I’d be too late.”

She shook her head, not sure whether to laugh or cry. She looked up into his bright green eyes and smiled.

“No, Barry. For once, you were right on time.”


	15. Prodigal

Barry was used to the idea of time expanding and contracting around him; seconds becoming minutes, hours feeling like days. But the two months he’d been away from Iris still felt like a lifetime. His memories of her face were flawless, so even in the harsh contrasts of the night-time road, he could see the strain on it, lines and shadows that hadn’t been there before. Maybe it had been a lifetime for her too.

She was as reluctant to let go as he was, but they had to. A pair of legs was sticking out of the car’s back door. Barry jogged over and helped their owner sit up.

Cisco, battered, weak and shivering, grinned at him. “Hey, man. You back?”

“I’m back,” Barry told him. “What happened?”

Cisco’s smile slipped. “I found the bad guys. Barry…”

A screech of breaks behind him. Barry looked past Iris as Joe’s car slewed to a stop in the middle of the road. Joe jumped out of it and ran straight towards them.

“Iris!”

“Dad!” Iris called back. “I’m okay. We’re okay.”

Joe stopped in front of her, looking her up and down. Then he looked past her at Barry.

“They called you?”

“You didn’t tell him?” Barry exclaimed.

Iris shrugged. “I’m sorry, there wasn’t time.”

“Oh my god…”

The trio in the road turned. Crystal was standing in front of the car staring at Barry like she’d seen a ghost. Which he couldn’t really say was inaccurate.

“You’re alive?”

Barry groped for something to say, smiled sheepishly and settled on, “Sorry.”

“How…?”

“It’s not his fault,” Iris said. “We couldn’t tell anyone. We’ll explain, I promise, but Cisco needs a doctor. He won’t stop shivering. Caitlin said he was locked in a freezer.”

“Where is Caitlin?” Barry asked.

“She said she had to go back to the Rogues,” Iris said.

“And you let her?” Barry responded. “I’ll find her. I’ll be right back.”

Iris grabbed his arm. “No. If they find out about you now we don’t know what they’ll do. We have a plan to get Caitlin out, but not right now.”

“Right now, we’ve got to get off this road,” Joe interrupted. “Get Cisco, put him in the back. I know someone we can call.”

“Tell me,” Barry said. “I can have him there in two minutes.”

“And what if someone sees you?” Iris snapped. “It’s Saturday night, Barry.”

“If we’re going to go,” Cisco called weakly. “Can we just go?”

Joe pointed to the car. “Get in. Everybody. Right now. That means you too, Barry. _Now_.”

Barry whisked Cisco out of Iris’ car and put him in the back of Joe’s. Crystal got in without a word, still looking dazed. Barry and Iris got in either side of Cisco. H wasn’t shivering quite as much, but kept the blanket wrapped around him. His head dropped against Barry’s shoulder and he blinked sleepily.

Joe pulled the car around and then pressed his phone. “Doctor Lincoln, it’s Detective West. When you get this, can you meet us at STAR Labs? Cisco’s had another accident. Thank you.” He glanced over his shoulder. “What happened to the car?”

Iris tensed. “There was… I don’t know. A speedster with a gun. She chased us from the base. She wanted Cisco back.”

“Dillon, Morillo and now another one?” Joe said. “How?”

“Clariss,” Cisco whispered. “Clariss is doing it. He’s got a serum that can make metas. And…” He looked up at Barry, his eyes wide. “Barry, he’s working with Professor Zoom.”

The name froze Barry. Professor Solomon Hunter. The man smart enough to turn himself into a speedster by manipulating time. Who was the reason Caitlin needed a thermal suit to survive. Whose defeat had nearly cost Barry his life.

“Oh… shit.”

“You’re sure?” Iris asked.

Cisco nodded. “I saw him. And when they took me, they trapped Joe in something. It was like he was frozen in time. It was like Hunter’s suit, only backwards.”

“What about Dillon and Morillo?” Joe asked.

“They’re all working together,” Cisco said. “Them, Clariss, Hunter and the Racer. They’re getting orders from a Marine colonel. Colonel Black.”

“What does he want?” Crystal said.

“She,” Cisco muttered. “I don’t know. But it’s them. All of it.”

His head drooped again and his chin bounced against his chest as the car bumped back onto the paved highway and accelerated towards the city. He winced, shifted in the seat and thein winced again. It suddenly occurred to Barry that the bruises on his friend’s face weren’t the only ones.

“Was that it?” Crystal asked. “You pretended to be dead because you didn’t know who shot you?”

“Yeah,” Barry said. “If they thought I was dead they’d relax. If they didn’t, they might try again.”

“And Barry barely survived the first time,” Iris put in.

“So I really, really appreciate you trying so hard to solve my murder,” Barry said. “Honestly, I do. It was important.”

“I know,” Crystal said. She looked at Joe. “Who else knows he’s alive?”

“Just Caitlin. And Captain Singh.”

“The captain knows?” Crystal exclaimed.

“Only that someone tried to kill Barry and we wanted to let them think they’d succeeded,” Joe told her.

Crystal slumped slightly in her seat. “Well… at least you were better at keeping this secret than the other one.”

“Till now,” Joe remarked.

“That doesn’t matter,” Barry said. “Now we know what we’re up against.”

“Do we?” Joe responded.

Barry wasn’t certain how to answer that. It seemed like they did. He hoped they did. He waited for Iris to tag in, but she didn’t say anything.

Everyone jumped as Joe’s cell phone rang. He hit the speaker.

“Detective West, this is Doctor Louise Lincoln.” She sounded tired and also like she was accidentally repeating the introduction she used to call patients. “I’m on my way to STAR Labs. What’s happened to Cisco?”

“We think he’s suffering from hypothermia,” Joe answered.

There was a pause and the sound of a few deep breaths. Barry got the distinct feeling that Doctor Lincoln was stopping herself from shouting. Finally she said, “Is he shivering?”

“Yes,” Iris called.

“Wrap him up and keep him warm. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

The call ended. Barry looked down at Cisco. “Has this happened before?”

“Just once,” Cisco protested. “After I fought Caitlin.”

“ _You fought Caitlin_?”

Iris gave him a sharp look, telling him that Cisco’s adventures during his absence were stories for another time. Barry sat back. Being left out of the loop wasn’t much fun at all.

“I can run Cisco back to STAR Labs,” he said, changing the subject. “I’ll get there before Doctor Lincoln and let her. I’ll go over the river. Nobody will see me.”

Joe looked in the mirror at Cisco, who’s shivers had mostly die down but he was still shifting against his unseen injuries. “Alright.”

“Just stay sub-sonic,” Iris said. “We’ll see you in an hour, Cisco.”

Cisco grinned. “Let’s go, man.”

Barry grabbed him, blanket and all, and took one last look at Iris, her excited smile and wind-blown hair frozen as his perceptions started to accelerate. Then he was out of the car, barely off balance, and leaving it behind. Cisco felt surprisingly light and had wrapped his arms around Barry’s neck as they hurtled through the Badlands. The ground wasn’t even, but the lightning around him lit the way in a sequence of strobing flashes, and even at this speed, Barry had plenty of time to decide where to put his feet.

He ramped the speed up as high as he dared, holding it at over four hundred miles an hour, and then changed direction and shot towards the river. He reached it just as the ground levelled out and sprang easily onto the water. Even in ordinary shoes, he could keep his grip on the surface as it was thrown up in his wake. The wave shimmered in the night and was probably visible for miles. But this really was the only way to travel.

The night ahead of him glittered. The towers of Central City appearing out of the darkness. Barry could see the yellow-orange halo of light leaking from his home town. Until it came in sight, he’d been afraid it wouldn’t be there or it would have changed. But it looked just the same as ever.

Part of him wanted to keep going, check every street, everywhere he’d ever visited, but the shadow of STAR Labs was looming behind the embankment and Cisco was still trembling in his arms. He veered around, through one of the back entrances, slowing to what felt like walking pace by comparison. Even so, he was into the medical lab before the lights finished flickering on. He put Cisco down on the examination table and retrieved one of the spare sweatshirts before heading for the coffee machine.

“No, don’t do that!” Cisco called. “Your coffee sucks.”

Barry stopped by the percolator and put the half-filled jug down next to it. He stood in the centre of the Cortex, breathing in the still air, smelling the remains of the dust. He’d been travelled a long way in the last two months, but there was nowhere else he felt so much like he belonged.

His shoes squelched on his feet. They were full of river water. He smiled to himself. At least that kept them from combusting.

“What was it like here… while I was gone?”

“Empty,” Cisco said. “We… cleared out of the lab after you left. I’ve been working… in the precinct. It’s not the same.”

Barry nodded. “Umm… what about my lab?”

“Just the way you left it. We made real sure.”

They both grinned. The door intercom flickered. Doctor Lincoln stood outside, looking like she’d been called away from an urgent night in.

“I’ll get that,” Barry said.

“Barry!” Cisco called after him. “We missed you. All of us.”

“I missed you too.”

Barry ran to the door, and stayed out of sight of the street as he buzzed the doctor in. A few lies occurred to him, but they all sounded awful, so he figured he’d just try not to mention it. Doctor Lincoln hurried inside, a backpack slung over one shoulder, and brought herself to a stop in front of him.

“You’re…”

“Barry Allen.”

“You were dead,” Doctor Lincoln said, and then her eyes widened. “You’re the Flash.”

Barry’s own eyes went wide. He visibly blanched. Doctor Lincoln just blinked.

“Okay,” Barry said, “but if anyone asks, say you beat it out of me. Cisco’s in the med lab.”

He turned away and she followed him down the corridor to the elevator. “After Caitlin’s accident,” she said, “the Flash didn’t visit her. But you did. I don’t think it’s that hard.”

“Yeah, that’s what everybody says,” Barry muttered. 

He thought he glimpsed a smile cross Doctor Lincoln’s face. It lasted as long as it took for them to reach the medical lab and for her to see Cisco. He looked up at her and Barry wondered if the renewed shiver wasn’t nerves.

“Hi, Doctor Lincoln.”

“Tell me that this wasn’t Caitlin.”

“We got trapped in a freezer.”

“Where?” Lincoln asked, then shook her head. “Never mind, you can’t say, can you? Is she alright?”

Cisco smiled, like it was private joke. “She got us out.”

Doctor Lincoln dropped her bag on the table and dug around in it. “Here. Thermometer. You’re lucky I’m putting this in your mouth.”

Cisco laughed. Then it cut off in a choked cough. He doubled over and Barry had to catch him before he slipped off the table. Doctor Lincoln reached his other side. Without asking permission, she pulled up his sweater and the t-shirt underneath. Cisco’s entire abdomen was an overlapping pattern of red and purple bruises.

Barry had seen bruises like that before, on autopsy photos. He barely had to guess the cause, and he could tell Doctor Lincoln knew it too.

“Cisco, who did this to you?” she whispered.

“A guy called Morillo,” Cisco said.

And Barry knew who’d given the orders. It had to be Clariss.

Doctor Lincoln’s face was set. “Cisco, I’m going to get you warmed up, and then I’m going to check for internal injuries. If I find any, I’m taking you to the hospital. Do you understand?”

“Yes, doctor.”

Barry left the med bay. He strode out through the Cortex, leaving a trail of wet footprints behind him. Searching for a spare pair of shoes would at least give him something to do other than think. He had another run to make tonight, but he wanted to catch up with Iris first. He was almost afraid of what she’d tell him.

Iris was getting into car chases with evil speedsters. Caitlin had become an honorary Rogue. Cisco was being tortured by military-sponsored metahumans. What else had changed while he’d been away?

* * *

Caitlin walked through the Badlands under a clear and starry sky. The moon had risen, giving her enough light to see her way now her eyes had gotten used to the darkness. Her little glowing compass helped guide north-west, her path zigzagging to throw off any pursuit. Sometimes an animal would howl in the distance and be answered, but there was nothing close enough to be a threat, and she was confident she could deal with a coyote if she had to.

She’d tested the suit’s ability to keep her muscles and joints warm enough to stroll through the city, but never on a solo hike like this. She didn’t think she had any other choice but to take the long way round on foot. She’d been afraid of being followed after Iris drove away. A few minutes afterwards, she thought she’d seen a shadow flash past from the base down the trail, but she was starting to wonder if she’d imagined it. There had been no shouts, no running steps, no readied weapons. Nobody was coming after her. She was alone in the world.

As she walked, her mind wandered. It felt like an eternity since she’d had a time to stop and think. And now, she found herself remembering all the things she missed. Her apartment, filling it with the clattering of pots and pans, searching the internet for recipes and then the city for their more unusual ingredients. She missed her books too; the familiar stories, the characters whose lives she’d followed again and again, the places and times they took her.

Then there was the Cortex, the lab and the people who’d made it a place where she really could help others and enjoy using the skills she’d worked so hard for. She’d stood alongside heroes in that building. Barry, Cisco and Iris; three lights blazing no matter how dark the world seemed to become. She thought about Harrison Wells – the real one – and hoped that he would have approved of what they were doing with the legacy he’d unknowingly bequeathed to them.

She told herself again and again that she’d get back to STAR Labs and her friends. But then she thought of throwing frozen daggers at Cisco, planning robberies with Snart, and the hatred in Shawna’s eyes. She really was Killer Frost after all.

The thought almost stopped her, but she kept on putting one foot in front of the other. If she didn’t, she’d never be sure that Iris and Cisco had gotten away. Her promise to Snart was the least of the ones she had to keep.

Slowly, she began to perceive a glow in the night ahead of her. It was far too early to be dawn. She could see the tendril of light reaching across the Badlands. The Interstate. It was almost empty at this time of night, but she saw the occasional flare of headlights rush past. Getting closer, she could even make out a square of more definite light away to her left, and she nearly laughed. An hour of trekking across the Badlands had brought her within sight of the filling station she’d agreed to meet the Rogues.

She pushed herself as fast as she dared, suddenly starting to feel the hunger and thirst that had built up along her walk. Her knees and ankles were aching, but she couldn’t stop now or she’d never manage the last mile.

There was a chain of dozing Mac trucks to one side of the station. None of the drivers noticed her slip past and onto the main lot. The cars weren’t there. She nearly panicked, wondering what had happened to the Rogues and whether she could hitch back to Central City in the dark.

Then she turned and saw the familiar and now rather battered van parked next to its convertible sister outside the Arby’s. She stumbled up to them. The Rogues were visible through the restaurant window. The Snarts looked like they were arguing while Rory finished a burger. He was the one who looked out of the window and nudged Snart’s shoulder. Lisa waved.

Caitlin slumped down on the hood of Lisa’s car. Now she’d stopped, her whole body seemed to be aching. She realised she could still feel the air moving; the suit was pulling enough heat to cause a chilly breeze in the warm night.

Lisa left the restaurant first. “You made it!” she exclaimed. “I told Len he had to order you something, but it got cold waiting for you.”

Caitlin didn’t care. The room-temperature chicken sandwich tasted delicious anyway. She also accepted the soda that came with it, even though that was mostly melted ice.

“Thank you, Lisa,” she said.

“Any time, Katie.”

“Doctor Snow,” Snart said, appearing just as she finished wiping her mouth. “Wasn’t sure you’d be here.”

“Likewise,” Caitlin replied. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” Snart smiled. “What about Cisco?”

“I got him out. He’s with Iris. I think they got away.”

“Good,” Snart said. “Let’s go.”

“Wait,” Caitlin said, and then took a breath, bracing herself. “Thank you. All of you. We couldn’t have done it without you.”

Snart smiled again, but didn’t speak. Caitlin wondered at his motives for the hundredth time that night. She didn’t want to ask, the chances of getting a straight answer were zero. And some things you didn’t question too closely.

“You ever want to do it again,” Rory said. “Just ask. I haven’t had that much fun in months.”

“There you have it, Doctor Snow,” Snart said. “But after that display, we’ll have to lay low for a while.”

“No fun taking all that money if you don’t spend it,” Lisa put in. “You can come along, if you like. Can she, Len?”

She sounded like she was asking her brother for a puppy. Snart showed a rare moment of irritation, and Caitlin was almost sorry to disappoint them. “I can’t. The people who took Cisco know we know about them now. I have to go home.”

“And how are you going to do that,” Snart asked, “with half the CCPD looking for your alter ego? The wig won’t fool them forever.”

Caitlin nodded. “That’s why I need one last favour. I need to get arrested.”

* * *

Henry Allen rolled over in bed and opened his eyes. It was still dark. The clock on the nightstand read twenty to three. He’d never been a particularly heavy sleeper, after a lifetime of being roused by medical emergencies, then a crying baby, then a boy afraid of the dark. And if there was a way to sleep soundly in prison, he hadn’t learned it in fourteen years.

Even so, something had woken him, but it took him a moment to figure out what it was. As the fog of sleep cleared, he realised there was someone standing beside his bed. The shape was unmistakable, even in the shadows. He fumbled desperately for a switch, praying the visitor would still be there when the light came on.

He was.

“Hi, dad,” Barry said.

Henry sprang out of bed and threw his arms around his son. He wanted to laugh and he wanted to cry. The world spun but he kept hold of Barry. Barry held him tightly too, far too tight for this to be anything but real.

“Did you get the letter?” Barry whispered. “The message?”

“The fifteenth,” Henry nearly sobbed.

Barry let out a shuddering breath. It was such a simple code. If any letter from Barry was dated with an odd number then it was a lie, no matter what it said.

“I’m sorry,” Barry muttered. “I’m so sorry I had to do that to you.”

“It’s okay,” Henry said. “It doesn’t matter. You’re okay. You’re alive. That’s all that counts.”

He couldn’t hold the tears back anymore. Henry could never admit how scared he’d been, seeing Joe on his doorstep and reading the letter even though he knew the hidden message. The grief at the funeral had been real, because he’d lost fourteen years of his son’s life, and standing in front of a marker bearing Barry’s name smothered the dim hope that this wasn’t really true. For two months he’d been tormented by dreams that he’d never see Barry again, that he really was resting next to Nora and watching the lake until Henry joined them. He’d held onto Iris’ hand so tightly, not daring to speak, to ask what was really going on as Caitlin watched from a painful distance and a blonde woman he didn’t know cried onto the shoulder of Oliver Queen.

“What happened?” he asked quietly. “Who…?”

Barry pulled back a little. There were tears in his eyes too. “Dad, it’s not over. There are some people trying to make new metahumans. They took Cisco. We got him back but… they have another speedster. Someone like me. Iris called me to help but I nearly didn’t get there in time.”

“But you did, didn’t you?” Henry asked.

Barry nodded. “Yeah. Iris is okay. Cisco’s with a doctor. We think Caitlin’s safe too. Sorta. She… um… she had to go undercover with the Rogues.”

“The Rogues? Leonard Snart?”

“Yeah.”

Barry took another breath and sank down onto the bed. Henry sat next to him. Barry curled up, looking at his hands.

“Iris told me what’s been happening while I was gone. These people… they made these two new metas and they’ve fighting the police. They put two officers in the hospital and killed the driver of an armoured car they robbed. Dad, one of them shot Joe. If he hadn’t had a vest on…”

Henry suddenly understood. “Son, if the next words out of your mouth are ‘I should have been there’, then you’re wrong.”

Barry looked up at him. “But…”

“No,” Henry said. “You did the right thing, staying away. These people, whoever they are, nearly killed you. Barry, I was at your funeral –” His own voice cracked and he had to wipe away fresh tears. “None of us want to lose you. You’ve done so much. Iris, Cisco, Caitlin and Joe, they just wanted to keep you safe. And let me tell you something, if the people of Central City knew why the Flash really left, they’d understand.”

“I ran away,” Barry said.

Henry shook his head again. “Barry, it doesn’t matter how strong or how fast you are if you’re not smart too. Running was the smart thing. Now you’ve got to stay smart, and whoever these people are, you can beat them. All of you. Together.”

Barry nodded slowly. He raised his head at last. “I missed you, dad.”

“I missed you too, son. So much.” He paused for a few breaths. “After all this is over, why don’t you come stay here for a while? I can sleep on a camp bed and I’ll show you round Coast City.”

Barry smiled at last. “You don’t have to get a camp bed, dad. I can be back to Central City in like five minutes.”

“I know. But it would mean a lot. If you stayed.”

“Then I’ll stay.”

Henry smiled back. “Good. Now, you should get back to STAR Labs. Check on Cisco. Tell him and Iris I said to be careful. And give Caitlin a hug from me when you see her.”

“I will, dad.”

Henry wrapped his arms around Barry one last time, then faced the man his little boy had grown into. “Now go be a hero… _Flash_.”

Barry let out a last, relieved sigh. Then he was gone, in a flicker of light and a gust of wind.

And alone in his room, Henry Allen sank down with his head in his hands, crying with joy because his son had come back from the dead.   

* * *

There were days when Caitlin could almost forget that despite the control and the peculiar side effects, what she really had was a medical condition. The day after the raid on the base wasn’t one of those days. The Rogues didn’t make it back to the club until nearly one in the morning and it was another hour before they were able to get to sleep. Caitlin’s last thought was wondering if Snart was going to keep watch all night, just in case. Then she fell face first onto her uncomfortable bed and the world went away for long time.

She woke at noon with her legs and back aching. She still felt exhausted. It took ten minutes to make it upright and another half an hour to stretch most of the pain out of her muscles and joints. She found a plastic-wrapped sandwich on the floor outside her room and ate it with a feeling of regret she would never have anticipated.

Downstairs, Lisa was waiting by the bar. “Where’s your brother?” Caitlin asked.

“With Mick,” Lisa replied. “We’re moving. Lenny’s checking things out.”

“Where will you go next?”

Lisa grinned. “Disneyland.”

Caitlin nodded slowly. That served her right for asking.

“Are you really going to help me?”

“Yeah,” Lisa said, sounding faintly surprised. “Don’t tell Lenny I said this but… he likes you. And you’ve got him curious. He wants to know how the game ends. And so do I, so don’t go disappointing me, Katie.”

“I’ll do my best,” Caitlin said.

She got the feeling she wasn’t allowed outside, and that Lisa was there to make sure. She desperately wanted to contact STAR Labs and make sure that Iris and Cisco were safe, but that wasn’t an option. She told herself there was nothing she could do anyway, and knew she had work of her own if she wanted to see them again in person. So she left the bar and headed back up to use the coffee machine in what had been the break room. She nearly missed Lisa calling after her

“We’ll miss you, Katie.”

When she turned, Lisa was fiddling with her cell phone. Caitlin was grateful for that. She had no idea how to respond. Only now was she realising that though the Rogues were violent, dangerous criminals, they were also a family. And for a little while, they’d been hers.

She made some coffee and opened her tablet on the table. Before she’d joined up with the Rogues she’d made eleven plans for her escape. Most of them were kept in her head. This one wasn’t. This was the extraction plan that had been agreed from the start if everything went well. Even now, that seemed so unlikely Caitlin could hardly believe she was going to use it.

She opened the file and looked at the maps she’d saved and the surveillance photos she’d taken of the big, solid building standing on the corner of 57th Street and Sherman Avenue. After everything else she’d done, it seemed oddly fitting that she should end her criminal career robbing a bank.  

Snart and Rory came back and spent the rest of the afternoon clearing out all evidence of the Rogues’ presence in the building. Until recently, Caitlin had wondered if they didn’t abandon safe houses by simply having Rory burn them down. To the best of her knowledge no one – not even Iris – knew where she’d been living, but Snart was as cautious as ever.

That evening, over a dinner of Indian takeout, she explained the next day’s robbery to the others. It wasn’t as precise as one of Snart’s plans, but then it wasn’t supposed to be. The most detailed explanations were devoted to the escape route.

After the food and drinks, she went back to her room but couldn’t sleep. Anxiety twisted inside her. She hadn’t told them the final part, the last secret she held. She didn’t dare, not while she had no chance of getting away. Leonard Snart was not a man who reacted well to surprises, especially this one.

Even without that, there were so many things that could go wrong. She could still die in the morning, so close to home and yet so far. She was still thinking of that the next day, as she slipped the contacts into her reddened eyes and secured her wig. Then she let all the emotion fall from her face and walked outside in her suit and her coat to join Snart, Lisa and Rory.

It was time for Killer Frost’s last bow.

Lisa drove. Rory sat beside her. Snart was in the back next to Caitlin. No one spoke. It was ten in the morning and the streets were as clear as they were going to be. The air conditioner was working hard to keep out the heat and the humidity, which had doubled overnight. Caitlin had her collectors set low; she didn’t want to overtax the heat capacitors before the job.

They parked the car a block behind the bank. Rory checked the police scanner, but there were no cops within five blocks in any direction. When Caitlin got out, she could taste the moisture. The sky was a cloudless blue, but there was a storm waiting beyond the horizon.

The Rogues crossed the ornamental courtyard in front of the bank and gave the area one last glance. Snart looked back at Caitlin.

“Ready?”

Caitlin’s mouth was dry. She was determined not to let her hands or her voice shake. She raised her head and made herself match Snart’s calm.

“Ready.”

“Let’s go,” Snart said.

He hit the doors first, with Rory and Lisa just behind him. They swung their weapons towards the guards while Caitlin brought up the rear, letting out a gust of chilled air that swept through the bank and caused most of the heads to turn.

“Ladies and gentleman,” Snart announced, striding into the open space between the ornamental pillars and holding his gun so everyone could see it, “raise your hands above your head and stay very still. You are being robbed by the Rogues.”

Caitlin’s eyes swept the interior. The old bank, with its marble floor and high ceiling, was almost empty. She’d been right about the timing; the morning rush had ended and there were only eight customers queuing in front of the two open service desks. Mercifully, they had been frozen with surprise and were all staring at Snart. The tellers had also been startled; they were both tense, hopefully just trying to remember their training on dealing with robberies as Lisa and Rory disarmed the guards and order them to lie down in plain sight.

“Watch them,” Rory growled to Caitlin.

Caitlin nodded and took her position behind the guards. Neither of them seemed willing to try anything without their weapons. The only noise in the room was the wall-mounted television supposed to provide a distraction to the queuing customers. Nobody was looking at it now.

“On the floor everybody,” Lisa ordered the customers. “Relax, we’re not here for watches and costume jewellery.”

With everybody lying down, Snart strode up to the tellers. “Open the drawers and pass over the cash.”

The young man on the other side was wide-eyed, but he managed a little shake of the head.

Rory growled. “This glass bulletproof, kid? You think it’s fireproof?”

The teller started opening the drawers. Rory gave him a shark’s smile. Snart turned his attention to the other one, a middle-aged woman.

“Open the deposit boxes. One at a time.”

That teller obeyed without argument. Caitlin wondered if either of them had hit the silent alarm. They’d had time. So had the manager, who, if they had any sense, was upstairs somewhere, locked in their office and calling the police.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of the guards slowly reaching for the radio on his belt. Caitlin didn’t take any chances. She hit him with a blast hard enough to leave frost on his clothes, and he went completely still.

Lisa’s head jerked around at the sound. Her eyes dropped to the guard and she flashed Caitlin a smile.

The first of the sirens reached their ears. Probably at least six blocks away, but coming closer. If anything, Lisa’s smile got brighter.

Snart looked around and smiled. “Everyone,” he said, “stay cool.”

And then, over the noise of the approaching cops, they heard something else. It was an unmistakable sound, rare to the rest of the world, but so common in Central City that the people had grown used to it. It had been two months since they heard it last, but they knew it immediately.

It was a sonic boom.

Lisa’s smile vanished. Rory’s face twisted with almost animal ferocity. Snart’s expression went completely flat.

Unheeded by the robbers, a whisper travelled between the customers on the floor. A few of the braver ones raised their heads, trying to see.

Snart grabbed the television remote and flipped the channel to the local news. The picture shifted between anchors and then jumped to a traffic helicopter over the heart of the city as it spun around to aim its camera at the biggest story in town.

A bolt of lightning hurtled down Central Avenue. It crackled past cars, motorcycles, and busses, changing direction in an instant, moving so fast the picture could barely keep up. Pedestrians caught on the edge of the image froze in astonishment, the wind of its passing whipping their hair. There was no question where it was going.

Lisa and Rory were staring at Snart’s back, tensed and waiting. Snart himself turned away from the picture and walked slowly towards Caitlin. He stopped in front of her, only a foot away, so close that no one else could see the ever-so-faint smile or hear what he said next.

“Not bad, Killer Frost.”

Caitlin felt like she should take a bow. “Thank you, Captain Cold.”

“Len!” Rory roared. “He’ll be here any second!”

Before Snart could respond, Caitlin leaned past him and shouted, “Go! I’ll hold him off!”

Rory looked at Snart, who nodded. The big man took off towards the rear fire exit and the escape plan. Lisa stayed for just long enough to blow Caitlin a kiss and then she followed. Snart was last, striding towards the door, refusing to be hurried even by the impossibility bearing down on them. He grabbed the bags of loot on his way out.

Caitlin turned around as Cold Gun blazed against the emergency door. She raised her arms and started sucking the heat from the heavy summer air until the water in it began to condense. A wave of fog rolled away from her as she pushed the bank’s door open and stepped into the courtyard.  There was already a police cruiser stopped against the curb, the officers clambering out just in time to be lost in the mist. 

Keeping the fog together was a lot harder than Mardon made it look. She had to concentrate, balancing the temperature and humidity, pulling the heat from further and further away to drag more airborne moisture down, adding it to the translucent barrier.

Caitlin advanced into the chilly air, feeling it trying to drain her precious heat. Somebody was yelling instructions to clear the area, but the fog muffled the noise and it sounded so far away.

She stood, listening to her own breathing, and then her ears caught a heartbreakingly familiar crackle in the instant before there was a flare of light in the mist. It trembled. The light flashed again, and Caitlin felt a warm breeze. She focused the collectors and fought to keep the fog stable.

But then the light, sound and wind all struck her at once. The fog blazed with a ring of golden fire, dragging the air around her into howling motion, tearing at her hair and clothes for ten deafening seconds, trapping her in the heart of a vortex that sucked the mist up into the sky and scattered it completely.  

The sun shone down. The wind faded to a gentle breeze. The air was clear, and Caitlin looked across the courtyard as the streak of lightning did a final victory lap and the Flash stopped in front of her.

It took all her willpower to sneer instead of smile.

“The Scarlet Speedster,” she said. “We meet at last.”

Welcome home, Barry.


	16. A Hero's Welcome

Barry walked into the Cortex, side by side with Caitlin, and was met by a round of applause. Iris whooped and cheered, Joe did the same. Even Crystal was smiling and clapping her hands. He pulled his mask back and couldn’t help but laugh.

“I guess we should take a bow,” he said.

Caitlin looked up at him and gave a brief, awkward smile. It was still weird seeing her with the blonde hair and those creepy blue eyes. She didn’t relax, she was still scanning the room.

Then somebody shouted, “Caitlin!”

Caitlin’s head snapped around. Cisco, in his pyjamas and _Star Wars_ slippers, was standing at the entrance to the med lab.

“Cisco!”

Caitlin shoved her wig into Barry’s hands and sprinted across the Cortex. She and Cisco collided at the bottom of the ramp and she threw her arms around him, burying her face into his shoulder and holding on like she never wanted to let go.

It was one of those moments Barry felt like he should look away. “Does she… umm… know about the bruises?” he asked Iris.

Iris smiled. “I don’t think they care.”

Doctor Lincoln appeared at the top of the ramp. She cleared her throat loudly. Caitlin looked up and relaxed her grip, apparently realising everyone in the room was looking at her.

“Hi, Louise.”

“Be careful with Cisco,” Doctor Lincoln said. “I just finished patching him up after your last adventure.”

Cisco winced a little as he and Caitlin disentangled themselves. “Sorry, doc. Umm… cold packs are good for bruises, right?”

“Not when applied like that,” Doctor Lincoln responded. “Caitlin, I’m releasing him into your care. Barry, Detective West, don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope you don’t have to call me again.”

“Thanks for everything,” Barry said.

Doctor Lincoln gave him a brief nod, collected her bag from the lab and strolled out of the Cortex.

“Wait,” Caitlin said, “how does she know about…?”

“She said she beat it out of him,” Crystal replied, smiling faintly.

“You need to try harder at keeping your secret identity a secret,” Joe said. “Or the whole city’s gonna know about it.”

“That doesn’t matter right now, dad,” Iris interrupted. “They’re just glad the Flash is back. Check this out.”

She flipped one of the screens to the local news.  Barely twenty minutes had passed and already the channel had managed to assemble a montage. The streak of light down Central Avenue, a newswoman Barry had blown straight past while she was reporting on a local interest story, finally culminating in a couple of pieces of cell phone footage documenting his arrival at the bank.

“Show off,” Cisco said.

“I was not!” Barry responded.

“You ran down the busiest street in the city, right under a news chopper. And after that sonic boom? You were so showing off.”

“Shut up,” Iris said. “This is Caitlin’s bit.”

The cell phone footage must have been bought on the scene for a small fortune. Barry running fast enough to disperse Caitlin’s fog and then dancing around her, zipping from spot to spot and vanishing again just as the ice blasts swung towards him.

“You really look like you were trying to hit me,” Barry remarked.

“I was,” Caitlin said.

Cisco laughed. “Dude, she nearly had you there.”

He was right. Caitlin’s last shot had narrowly missed Barry’s legs as she’d tried to freeze the ground beneath his feet. Luckily there hadn’t been enough water to work with, and the screen showed Barry rapidly reverse direction and, catching Caitlin off balance, rush towards her and sweep her away.

Just as the news cut back to the reporter in front of the bank, Iris’ cell started ringing.

“Hello? Yeah, I heard it. I’m watching the news now. I’ll be on my way as soon as I can. The cops will want the whole area sealed off till they’re done taking statements.” She sighed. “Yes, I’ll try to find him.” She hung up. “My editor. He wants me on the story yesterday. And he wants to know where the Flash has been for the last two months.”

“What are you going to tell him?” Barry asked. “About where I’ve been?”

Two sets of beeps stopped Iris from answering. Joe and Crystal both looked at their cell phones.

“The captain wants to see us,” Joe said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“I’ll…” Barry began, and then stopped. He couldn’t go with them. The Flash might be back in town but as far as the precinct knew, Barry Allen was still dead.

“Okay. Yeah. See you later, I guess.”

Crystal gave him a sympathetic smile as she followed Joe out. Barry hadn’t thought of any of this. If he announced his own miraculous resurrection right after the Flash reappeared, his flimsy secret really was going to be wide open. The CCPD had been strenuously avoiding the question of who wore the red suit for the last eighteen months, but there was only so far he could push that. He couldn’t go home, he couldn’t go out with Iris, Caitlin or Cisco. He’d have to live at STAR Labs until this was all over, only leaving as the Flash.

“Hey, don’t worry, man.” Not for the first time, Cisco seemed to have read his thoughts. “We’ll get some stuff and bring it over. It’ll be like a camping trip.”

“No, you guys don’t have to…”

“Barry,” Caitlin said, “I’ve spent the last three weeks in an abandoned building with Leonard Snart. Even the lab will be an improvement.”

“Two to one,” Iris said.

The screen with the broadcast blinked. Cisco turned towards it. “The hotline from Starling City. Oh boy. Did any of you remember to tell them…?”

“Oh god,” Iris whispered.

“Don’t look at me, I wasn’t here,” Caitlin protested.

That left Barry to edge forward and hit the control on the console, snapping his hand away like it would bite him. The screen flickered and Felicity stared out from it. They all heard the sharp intake of breath as the image focussed. Barry barely registered Oliver standing behind her with his hands on her shoulders.

“Oh my god,” Felicity gasped. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. It’s you. It’s really you. You’re alive. You are! You _asshole_!”

Something hit the camera at the Star City end hard enough that everyone in the Cortex ducked. “You were alive!” Felicity shrieked. “You were fine this whole time and I thought you were dead! I went to your funeral, Barry! I stood next to your grave and I cried! I thought I was never going to see you again and I’d never get the chance to say how great you were and how much I’d miss you! And you!” She suddenly swung towards Oliver. “If you knew about this, I swear –”

“I didn’t know,” Oliver said softly. He looked at the screen and his eyes were wet. “It’s good to see you, Barry.”

“Guys, I’m sorry,” Barry said. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“You couldn’t risk it,” Oliver said. “If we knew you were alive, we might have behaved differently, which would have blown your cover.”

“That’s easy for you to say!” Felicity snapped.

“Felicity,” Iris interrupted. “Barry didn’t lie to you. I did.”

“So did I,” Caitlin said.

“At the funeral, you all knew?”

“We did.”

Felicity jabbed a finger into Oliver’s chest. “You are a _terrible_ influence on these people!”

Oliver chuckled. “I know.”

The glare lasted for another few seconds, before Felicity turned back to the webcam. “Where were you, Barry?” she asked.

Barry shrugged. “Around. Joe got me an old car and a fake ID and the day before my funeral I… just started driving. Places nobody would recognise me. Anywhere nobody had ever heard of Barry Allen. Little towns, mostly. I never stayed anywhere more than a week. Tried to keep out of trouble, didn’t use my powers.”

“For two months?”

“Yeah. If I could have called, I swear I would have.”

Felicity took some long, deep breaths. She pulled off her glasses and wiped her eyes, then looked back at him.

“Barry, I’m so, so glad you’re alive. But I swear, if somebody tells me you’re dead again and I find out that you aren’t, then I will kill you for real. Okay?”

“Got it,” Barry said.

“Good. Now later on I’m gonna call back and you’re going to tell me what the hell is going on in Central City. But first… I have some crying to do. Stay safe.”

The screen went black.

“Wow,” Cisco said.

“Come on, she wouldn’t actually hurt me. Would she?”

“Probably not,” Iris said. “But she’d make sure you could never use a computer again.” She smiled brightly. “Okay, I’ve gotta go and write this story. There’s food in the break room. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

She grabbed her bag and left at a run.

“So that’s what it feels like,” Barry remarked, listening to her fade away down the corridor. “Well… l should change. After that… lunch?”

He was surprised to find the fridge was full. He could only guess that Iris, Joe or Crystal had stocked up. It was all takeout that had to be reheated in the microwave, but it tasted alright. Better than that, it was familiar. Caitlin disappeared for a few minutes, and when she came back, her eyes were brown again. She sat on the couch next to Cisco, and Barry pulled up a chair opposite them and ate a protein bar while he waited for the food. He could almost convince himself it was like old times, except nobody spoke while they were eating. Barry had no idea what had happened while he’d been away, but if it was enough to reduce his best friends to silence with each other then he almost didn’t want to.

But he had to ask. They had to talk about something, and he had to face how much he didn’t know and hadn’t been there for.

“What was it like with Joe at the precinct?” he asked.

Cisco shifted in his seat. Barry hadn’t spoken to him nearly enough. He’d been battered and exhausted and Doctor Lincoln had insisted he got plenty of rest before he got grilled by his friends.

Caitlin gave Cisco a little nudge. “How did you start investigating Dillon and Morillo?”

Cisco’s story started with the bank robbery. He told them about Roscoe Dillon’s metahuman spinning power and the gun Jared Morillo had used to make the cops so dizzy they couldn’t stop the escape. He talked about tracking the armoured cars and using his powers on Morillo during the second attack. Barry knew about that already; the day before, Joe had told him how Cisco saved his life. Cisco didn’t mention that part, he just said he knocked Morillo’s helmet off so they could ID him. Then he told them about how Jerry McGee helped him figure out how the vertigo gun worked and how they’d tracked the technology from Mercury Labs to Doctor Edward Clariss.

The last part of the story was the hardest to tell and the hardest to hear. Joe frozen in the alleyway by the Turtle machine. Cisco taken to the military base by Clariss and Hunter. All he said to explain the bruises was that he wouldn’t talk, and he skimmed over tricking Clariss into introducing him to the colonel in charge of the operation and figuring out how it all fit together like anybody could have done it. While he was alone, in pain, and cuffed to a chair.

“Cisco…” Barry muttered.

“It’s okay, man. It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know.”

Barry’s next breaths were hard work. He hadn’t known the first time either, when Cisco had been taken by Snart.

“At least I got better company than Caitlin,” Cisco went on. “Go on, tell him how you joined the Rogues.”

Caitlin didn’t have Cisco’s enthusiasm for her own adventures. Barry could tell from her careful pauses that there was a lot of internal editing going on. Not to mention there were parts of the story that they’d probably never know anyway.

The day of Barry’s funeral, Iris had found a note slipped into her jacket, telling her to call a payphone number at a certain time. She hadn’t expected Leonard Snart to answer, or to tell her that he’d guessed the STAR Labs team was being watched – which they knew – and that the Rogues were as well, which they hadn’t. Iris, Caitlin and Cisco had already keeping their distance from each other out of fear of giving something away. Iris and Caitlin had convinced Joe to offer Snart some undercover assistance and fake a public schism in the team, apparently removing it as a threat and making Caitlin seem desperate enough to seek help from the Rogues.

Caitlin didn’t say how she’d used the three weeks to plan her career as a supervillain. She skimmed over the burglary of Palmer Tech, then went into more detail about how the Rogues had ended up robbing Mercury Labs only to find the sound suppression machine already gone. She also left out how they’d found Shawna Baez, but she did say why Shawna had helped them. Barry went cold all over. He’d never thought of Shawna as dangerous and never felt like he needed to look for her like Bivolo or Nimbus, who he was still trying to track down.

“We have to do something,” Cisco said in agreement. “We’ve got to find her and get that bomb out.”

“We will,” Barry said.

“And then what?” Caitlin asked distantly, and again, Barry wondered what she hadn’t told them.

“I don’t know,” Barry admitted.

Shawna was still technically a wanted criminal, but the idea of handing her over to Iron Heights after everything she’d been through just felt wrong.

Caitlin nodded slowly. She sighed to herself and then pushed it all out of sight. “What about you, Barry? Where did you go?”

Barry shrugged. He’d tried not to stray more than a thousand miles from Central City, and he remembered people better than places anyway. He told them about Johnny and Libby, who ran a motel and steakhouse where Barry taken on the 72-ounce steak challenge and deliberately lost.  Max, a retired Navy pilot and pride of his town who’d travelled to places Barry had only ever seen on TV. Daphne, a mechanic he’d got to know for a week when his car had broken down outside a place called Fallville. A dozen others whose lives he’d watched, barely daring to touch, sometimes wondering if they would remember the young man who’d introduced himself as ‘Harry’, stayed a while, and then faded over the horizon.

“You didn’t stop any outlaws or defend any helpless maidens tied to railroad tracks did you?” Cisco asked, earning a pleasantly familiar scoff from Caitlin.

Barry shook his head. “Sorry.”

He didn’t tell them, but he had started to feel like he was in one particular Western after a while: _Pale Rider_. He’d felt like a ghost.

After that, he steered the conversation back to Cisco, and the development of his powers. Booms and now sound amplification.

“Maybe you should try both,” Barry suggested. “Send out a small boom and then listen to the echoes.”

“Like… sonar?” Cisco exclaimed. “Yeah! Yeah, that’d be awesome!”

“What about you, Caitlin?” Barry asked.

Caitlin stiffened. “I don’t think so, Barry. I’d just like to go back to being Doctor Snow.”

“Okay…” Cisco said. “But you made a pretty cool superhero.”

“Supervillain,” Caitlin corrected.

“About that,” Barry said. “Nobody knows that you’re… her except us and the Rogues. So what are we going to say happened?”

Caitlin looked at the floor. “The police report will say Killer Frost escaped from custody on the way to Iron Heights. They’ll blame the Rogues. She’ll disappear. Nobody will ever know who she was.”

Iris stuck her head around the door in time to hear the last part. “Just another Central City mystery.”

Barry blinked. “Iris. That was fast.”

“Dude, no wonder you’re always late,” Cisco said. “It’s five o’clock.”

Barry looked at the pale stripe on his wrist. He hadn’t worn his watch under the suit, he never did. When he changed back into his street clothes, he’d completely forgotten to put it back on.

“Guys, if you really want to stay here tonight, you should probably go home and pick up your stuff. I’ll get the room sorted out.”

“Sure,” Cisco said. “Come on, Caitlin.”

“I can give you a ride,” Iris offered.

Caitlin shook her head. “No. You should stay here. With Barry.”

“Yeah,” Cisco agreed. “I can drive. As soon as I find where Doctor Lincoln hid my shoes.”

He ambled out of the room. Caitlin exchanged a few words with Iris and then followed him. Iris herself sat down on the couch with her laptop. Barry just let his head fall back. He’d been talking all afternoon and that was great, but he’d known Iris for so long that they didn’t have to spend all their time on conversation. It was nice to just sit and listen to the rustle of notes and the clicking of computer keys as she wrote. She was the only person in the world he’d sit still for.

Boredom did eventually start gnawing at him, so he got up and organised the room down the hall. It had once been the lab cafeteria, but had been repurposed as a camp site when people wanted to spend the night there. This had been going on since before he woke up from his coma.

He retrieved the camp beds, pillows and sleeping bags from the storage rooms downstairs, then went back to Iris with a cup of coffee. She never complained about his barista skills.

He found her listening to some of the interviews she’d done at the bank. Only one of them mentioned Caitlin during the robbery itself. He looked awkwardly at the floor as the former hostages’ voices rose in volume and sometimes pitch as they started describing his arrival. They all just seemed excited and happy to see the Flash again. He couldn’t help but smile when the guard described Snart running for the exit ‘like a little girl’ when he’d heard the sonic boom.

“I told you, Barry,” Iris said as she finished making notes about one of the tellers. “Central City missed you. Only idiots felt like you owed them to be here. A lot of people were worried something had happened to you.”

Barry looked up and wiped his eyes. As if mirroring his thoughts, rain was starting to patter on the windows.

“You have to tell them something about where I went,” he said.

“Of course I will,” Iris replied. “I’m the Flash Girl. Gotta keep the title somehow.”

“So what are you going to say?”

“That you were recruited as part of a top secret team of heroes to save the world from a huge threat, but you can’t give me any more details because it’s too dangerous.”

“Seriously?”

“Why not? Stranger things have happened.”

Barry nodded. “Yeah, I guess they have.”

The rain outside was getting heavier. A quick check of the weather service revealed that the first of the summer storms had finally arrived.

“You think I should call Caitlin and Cisco?” he asked. “They’ve been gone a couple of hours.”

“They’ll be alright,” Iris told him. “They haven’t seen each other for weeks. Give them some time to catch up. If they aren’t back in another half hour, I’ll get us some more takeout.”

“You don’t have to stay.”

Iris closed her laptop and looked up at him. “I want to. I missed you, Barry. Even though I knew you were coming back… it was still hard. I wanted to solve the case so badly just so you could come home.”

“I missed you too, Iris.”

He wanted to say more, but didn’t know how. He thought Wells’ holographic newspaper. The red skies, the crisis. April 25th 2024\. Was all that still out there, waiting for him? The past could be changed, so why not the future? And Barry wasn’t sure if he’d make it to the end of the summer, let alone eight years from now.

All the more reason not to waste any of the time he did have.

“Pizza?” he suggested. “You pick the toppings.”

She grinned. “You always know the way to my heart, Barry Allen.”

* * *

Cisco had to admit that the plan for infiltrating Caitlin into the Rogues had been a work of genius; but like most plans, it had a flaw. In this case, Caitlin’s apartment. Before she’d left, she’d cleaned, tided, and even made sure there was nothing perishable in the refrigerator.

“What?” she asked, watching him look around.

“Caitlin, your OCD nearly ruined us all. One look in here and nobody would have believed you’d been blackmailed into going on the run with a bunch of super-criminals.”

“Or, that I didn’t want to alert my neighbours that there was anything unusual happening.”

“Huh. You think of everything.”

Caitlin looked away. “I’m going to change,” she said.

“Sure.” Cisco lifted the bag of leftover chilli he’d retrieved from his own fridge. “I can heat this up if you want?”

“What about Barry?” Caitlin asked from her bedroom.

“You think he’s going to wait for us? Come on, it’s got to be eaten and we do kinda need a table and bowls.”

“Alright.”

Cisco hummed to himself, spooning out the remainder of the chilli. Reaching for the glasses he put too much weight on his bad leg and hissed with pain.

“Cisco? Are you okay?”

“Fine!” he shouted back. It had been bad enough when she’d followed him around his own apartment like he’d have a stroke if left unattended for more than a minute.

She came out a few minutes later, wearing a smart sweater even though they were about to eat chili and would be camping at the lab after that. He wondered if she owned anything that wasn’t smart. Even after Ronnie, she’d never allowed her appearance to slip.

“I’ll pack up the suit with my clothes,” she said.

“You want to bring it with us?”

She, looking at her food. “I thought you might want to look at it.”

He grinned. “Yeah, of course. Looks like you did a great job. I’d love to see it up close. I’ll give it an overhaul, maybe up the efficiency.”

“You don’t have to.”

She said it like an order. Cisco put his spoon down. “Caitlin, what’s wrong?”

Caitlin twisted her own spoon. “I just don’t want to do that again.”

“Why not? You were awesome.”

“I was _her_ , Cisco,” Caitlin snapped. “I thought it was just a name, but it’s not. It’s _her_. It’s _me_. I am Killer Frost. I planned two robberies. I helped Snart break into a jewellery vault. I was a Rogue and I was _good at it_. And… and I hurt you.”

“Hey, hey. It’s okay.” Cisco shuffled around the table and put his hands on hers. “It’s alright. You did what you had to. That stupid thing at the plaza, that was my fault. I shouldn’t have been there. You didn’t have a choice.”

“ _No_!”

Caitlin spat the word. She pulled her hands away from him. Her eyes were tear-filled and she was trembling. He reached out for her again and she recoiled.

“I had a choice,” she said. “There is always a choice. They taught us that at med school. They made us promise, because there is a choice and you have to choose the right thing. But I didn’t.”

Cisco grabbed her hands. She didn’t move fast enough this time to get away this time. He held on even though his fingers were tingling and her eyes were full of fire.

“Caitlin, tell me. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

She let out a long, drawn-out sob and wilted. Her head dropped and her face was lost in the curtain of her hair. Her hands tangled in his, squeezing them tightly.

“Cisco,” she whispered, “I did something terrible.”

He didn’t speak. A little while passed and the trembling started to subside. She was tensing up again. She took a few long, slow breaths, and when she looked up, he could see the fear.

“I knew Shawna was connected to Clariss,” she said in a voice hiding tears. “After you went missing, I thought we had to find her. Iris, Joe and Crystal couldn’t do it, so we asked Snart. He found her. I… I told him how to capture her. How to contain her. Heatwave threw a stun grenade into her apartment so she couldn’t teleport. He put a bag over her head and I sedated her. Then we put her into a van and drove her to the Rogues’ base. We interrogated her until we found out about the bomb Clariss put inside of her. We used the signal from that to find him. Snart let Shawna go.”

Cisco stared into Caitlin’s eyes. They were like glass now. The slightest pressure would shatter her completely, but she was holding herself together by sheer will. She didn’t want understanding, and she would never have asked for pity.

Once, so long ago, their positions had been reversed. He’d faced her and confessed to doing something so awful he’d never dreamed it could be excused or forgiven. They’d been in a situation where there was no right answer, just two terrible things done for what they’d told themselves were good reasons.

He didn’t want argue morality with her. He couldn’t. He’d built a weapon to protect himself from the nicest guy he’d ever known, and twice handed it over to villains. He’d designed the cells that had held people without trial or chance of parole out of sight for months. He’d sold out Barry to save Dante.

Not everything was science. Sometimes, the equations would never balance and could never be solved. What mattered was where you went with the answers you got.

“Caitlin,” he said. “You’re not her. I’ve seen her in here more times than I can count.” He tapped the side of his head. “She doesn’t feel guilty. She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t risk her life for other people.”

Caitlin shifted and looked away, as though it was no big deal to infiltrate a military instillation she’d convinced Snart to attack. There was only one thing he could think to tell her; one way to make her understand what she’d done for him.

“Caitlin, when I was on the base, I thought I was going to die. I figured out what Clariss was doing, but it didn’t matter, because Black was going to kill me whether I helped them or not. I didn’t think anybody was gonna come for me.” He shrugged. “Even if they did, they’d be too late. When I saw you there, I thought I was dreaming.”

“I had to try,” Caitlin breathed. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he told her.

Caitlin slowly, cautiously leant forward, her chin coming to rest on his shoulder. He felt the gentle chill of her cheek on his, the tickle of her breath in his hair. She sighed, relaxed, and her eyes slipped closed. Cool tears dripped onto his neck.  He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. Slowly, slowly, her breathing steadied and her eyes dried.

“Louise will kill me if I give you frostbite again,” she muttered.

“I told you that would have made a good nickname.”

She shivered against him, giggles bubbling to the surface. She shifted slightly, pulling closer, making herself comfortable.

“Thank you, Cisco.”

Rain hammered on the windows. The apartment should have been hot and stuffy, but it wasn’t. He didn’t let her go. She didn’t ask him to.  

* * *

The military base in the Badlands was, perhaps, too isolated for its own good. Nobody could have found it unless they knew what they were looking for, but as a result, it took over six hours for a story which had crossed the state in minutes to reach them.

Black watched the report on the news site three times, just to be sure. Then she called Rico, Clariss and Hunter to her office. She watched them while they watched it. Rico’s expression barely changed, Clariss’ jaw slackened, Hunter went pale.

“You said he was dead!”

“You said it couldn’t have been him helping Ramon escape,” Rico responded.

“Are… we sure that it’s him?” Clariss asked. “There might be another one.”

“It’s him, ma’am,” Rico said. “It’s Barry Allen.”

“How?” Hunter demanded.

“Well, professor, it’s possible that…”

Black cut him off. “Doctor, I don’t want to hear you bullshit an explanation. What matters is that he’s alive. He’s been alive this whole time. And if his death was a lie, then I’m going to assume everything else you thought you knew about his team was a lie too.”

“That’s not possible,” Clariss protested. “They wouldn’t work with Snart!”

“Are you sure, doctor? Or are you making another assumption?”

Clariss fell silent. Hunter said, “If he’s found out where we are, we need to abandon this base. He’ll know I’m here.”

“Then go,” Rico said. “See how far you get with the state troopers looking for you.”

“If Ramon told him everything, he knows about the Turtle,” Black said. “He knows we can trap him. He and his team have proven how smart they are. They won’t come back here without a plan.”

“Ma’am, if he knows everything, then he knows about you.”

“Thank you, staff sergeant, but this is an officially sanctioned operation, not a rogue outfit throwing its weight around. If Allen doesn’t know that, his friends at the CCPD will. If he wants me, he’ll be going to war with the United States Marines.”

Rico smiled. “Oorah, ma’am.”

“Do you have a plan?” Hunter asked.

“Fortify the base’s key locations with your speed traps,” Black told him. “In case Allen is that stupid. Doctor, I want your operation out of Central City within forty-eight hours. You’ll be based here from now on.”

“Sure,” Clariss said, “but I’ve still got a project running there.”

“No more fucking around with Leonard Snart, doctor.”

“That’s not what I mean, colonel.”

“He means the teleporter,” Rico said.

Clariss nodded. “Yes. Shawna Baez has incredible potential. Your project will have to find ways of defeating that kind of infiltration or no building or installation in the world would be safe from someone like her.”

“You tagged her?”

“Of course I did!”

“Then bring her back here. You can do whatever tests you want by autopsy.”

“Colonel!”

Black stood. “No more bird watching. No more live subjects. That’s an order. I don’t care if you bring her in or not. But you will make sure she doesn’t talk and that nobody else sees what she can do. Goodnight, doctor.”

Clariss retreated, taking Hunter with him. At least the physicist looked happier with his instructions. Black could have ordered him to build a concrete bunker by hand and he’d still have been happy if it kept him away from Allen.

Rico was still at ease. “Ma’am, you can’t let him go back to the city alone. If Allen doesn’t find him then Snart or the cops will.”

“I know, staff sergeant. Escort him. And take your gear.”

“Aye aye, ma’am.”

Black thought for a long moment. “Staff sergeant… do you think Hunter’s suit makes you fast enough that you could take Allen hand-to-hand?”

Rico did her own thinking. “Ma’am, the Flash is a fucking fireman on speed. He’s never had to fight and he doesn’t know how. I can do it, ma’am.”

“Not tomorrow,” Black said. “Watch Clariss’ back. Make sure the job is done. But if Allen and his friends start something, you finish it.”

“Aye aye, ma’am.”  


	17. Do No Harm

Caitlin lived closer to STAR Labs than Cisco, so Iris tried there first. She tapped on the door and called through.

“Iris?” Caitlin replied. “It’s open!”

Iris stepped into the apartment. She had to skip over a sports bag by the door. Now that she was inside, she could hear a hair-dryer and followed the noise. Which was how she found Cisco, sitting on Caitlin’s bed, using Caitlin’s dryer and running one of Caitlin’s brushes through his hair. Iris stood in the doorway watching him until he noticed her. His eyes went wide, he flipped off the dryer and fumbled for something to say, apparently settling on the first cliché that crossed his mind.

“This… isn’t what it looks like.”

Iris raised her eyebrows. It took a lot of effort not to laugh. “Cisco, it looks like you drying your hair. But it’s a great way to make me think it’s the thing you’re trying to say it’s not.”

“Umm…” Cisco said.

Caitlin appeared in a cloud of French roast. She was still clutching her morning coffee. “Hi, Iris. Cisco, put that back above the closet when you’re done.”

Iris followed her into the kitchen. Caitlin swallowed the rest of the coffee and started washing the mug in the sink. “How’s Barry?” she asked.

“He was asleep when I left,” Iris said. “Which is good. I think it’ll take him about half an hour to go stir crazy.”

Caitlin nodded. “I’m sure he’ll be on the treadmill when we get back.”

“Or he’ll be running laps of the Pipeline.”

“That’s possible. I’m sorry we didn’t come back last night.”

Iris shrugged. “I don’t mind. It was nice. Having Barry back, staying up half the night talking. Like when we were kids. And you seem… better.”

“Cisco and I talked last night. A lot. I told him everything. I told him… about Shawna.”

“And how did he take it?” Iris asked.

Caitlin smiled. “He was Cisco.”

“That’s great,” Iris said.

She was a little jealous, and still slightly uneasy around Caitlin. There were parts of the deception that had got her into the Rogues that Iris wished she could just bury. Like how she’d publically cornered the woman who saved Barry’s life and accused her of killing him through negligence. Even though Caitlin had agreed, even though they’d all but scripted the argument, it still made her sick to think she’d said those things.

But Caitlin seemed to read her mind. “I didn’t tell Barry about our fight. It’s… not my place. But you should. He won’t blame you, Iris. I don’t.”

Iris smiled. “Thank you, Catlin. You know, if there’s anything I can do to make it up to you…?”

“Well…” Caitlin said. “You could help me find Shawna.”

“Yeah. Of course.”

“What’s going on?” Cisco asked, stepping into the kitchen.

“Shawna,” Caitlin said. “We need to get that device out of her.”

Cisco nodded. “Sure. Okay. We can track the signal back. I’ve got some stuff at the lab we can use if reversing the trace program doesn’t work. We’ll probably have to figure out a way to fake the data packets so Clariss doesn’t know what we’re doing. Caitlin?”

Caitlin had gone very quiet and very still. “Oh god,” she whispered. “Iris, Barry was on every news channel in the state last night. Even out there they’ll have seen it. What if Clariss figures out that’s how we found him? Or he just wants to make sure we don’t get to Shawna?”

“Or the colonel orders him to cover it up,” Cisco added.

Iris’ stomach dropped. “He wouldn’t kill her, would he?”

“I am not taking the chance,” Caitlin said. “We have to get back to STAR Labs.”

* * *

Caitlin was the first one into the Cortex, snapping instructions like she was back in the bioengineering department. “Cisco, start working on something to trick the device’s signal. Shawna said if you cut it off completely it will detonate. Iris, get back into the cell network and see if you can track her location.” She brought herself to a stop, took a breath and turned. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t talk to you like that. I’m just…”

“It’s cool,” Cisco interrupted. “Cell jamming. Do that in my sleep.”

“It’s okay,” Iris added, sitting down. “We’ll find her.”

Cisco grinned. “Hey, Iris, send me a copy of the data packets the device is sending and receiving. If I can reproduce them I can trick the network into thinking everything’s fine.”

“Sure.”

Cisco headed for the door as fast as his bad leg would let him. Barry passed him coming the other way, appearing in a rush of wind that blew Caitlin’s hair into her face. She’d never tell him, but she hadn’t really missed that.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Caitlin’s worried that Clariss is going to hurt Shawna,” Iris explained, without looking up from the computers.

Barry nodded. “I guess. She is his one loose end in Central City. But he can’t just kill her.”

“If he sets that device off it will,” Caitlin said.

“Caitlin,” Barry said gently, “calm down. Think about it. He can’t just set it off, because if he does, he’s destroyed the tracker too. So he won’t know where she is. The police could find her body, and he’s got to know we’ll figure out how she died. So even if he doesn’t want her alive, he’s still gotta be close to her before he does anything.”

Caitlin took another slow breath. She hadn’t thought of that. She’d been so worried about Shawna, so desperate to make amends, that she hadn’t thought of any of this.

“That makes sense,” she said.

“So, all we have to do is get to her before Clariss does,” Barry said. “And it’ll take me like… seconds once you find where she is.”

Caitlin shook her head again. “You can’t. If she sees you, she’ll panic. She’ll run.”

“What? Why?”

Iris turned her chair around and stood up. “Barry, she’s terrified of the Flash.”

Barry looked at them like they were joking. “But I’m not…”

“You are to her,” Iris cut him off. “You locked her in the Pipeline for months. I know you thought you had to but that isn’t the point. We might be able to get close enough to talk to Shawna, but you can’t.”

Barry’s eyes went distant. Caitlin wondered how long the next second was for him. Then he blinked.

“Okay, so… Caitlin, what do you need me to do?”

“Can you stay here and watch the monitors?” Caitlin asked.

He let out a short laugh. “Yeah, sure. Welcome to opposite day, I guess.”

He sat down next to Iris and in a few seconds was following her instructions as fast as she could give them. Caitlin left them and headed into the med lab. It took her a few minutes to find the military-issue medical response bag she kept for what Cisco jokingly referred to as ‘house calls’. She took it two levels down to the medical equipment storeroom and started picking out what she needed.

Sterile gloves, masks, iodine, alcohol wipes, surgical drapes; if they couldn’t persuade her to come back to the lab then the back of the van might do in an emergency. Local anaesthetic, scalpels, tweezers and forceps. Sutures and several different types of dressing.

With her supplies secured, she pulled up a stool and looked at her tablet. She checked and double checked the amount of anaesthetic she’d need to use and then played through the operation in her mind. It was a simple procedure, and she’d had quite a lot of practice doing hurried foreign-object removal, but she had to remind herself that Shawna wouldn’t have Barry’s high-speed healing and all the benefits and complications resulting from it.

“Hey,” Barry said.

Caitlin looked up. She hadn’t heard him come in. She’d chided him for zipping into rooms full of sensitive medical equipment, and apparently he’d taken it to heart. Given how careless he usually was about this, she wondered how tense she must seem for him to be so considerate.

“It’s alright, Barry. I’ve got everything I need.”

“That’s good,” Barry said. “We’ve found her. Sorta. She’s somewhere within five blocks of the cell tower at Twenty-Eighth and Landon. There’s a couple of crappy little apartment blocks out that way. She could be staying in one.”

It was also across town from where she’d been living the week before. She must have bolted as soon as she’d left the Rogues. But she was still in the city and the device was still transmitting. There was still time.

“Okay,” she said. “Barry, how much do you know about sterilising operating environments?”

“Give me ten seconds and I’m an expert,” Barry replied. “Why?”

Caitlin handed him the bag. “Take this down to the van, get a gurney and put it in the back. Sterilise everything. Then load up an air purifier, some lights and the portable ultrasound with gel.”

Barry grinned. “Yes, Doctor Snow.”

He was gone before she could protest.

She sighed, rubbed her eyes and marched back towards the Cortex. Cisco caught up with her in the corridor.

“How’s Nurse Barry?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes and promised herself she’d apologise later. “You should be careful of your leg.”

“Yes, Doctor Snow.”

They arrived in the main lab. “She hasn’t moved,” Iris called. “Not far enough to change the tower.”

Cisco sat down in the other chair and examined the results. He muttered to himself for a few moments and then checked the two devices he’d brought with him.

“Okay, yeah, that’s good.” He held up a machine with a digital readout in his left hand. “This should pick up the signal once we get close. It won’t tell us where she is but we’ll know we’re getting warm.” He raised the other device, the one with a screen. “This one will stop Clariss setting off the bomb. And I’ve got my tools in case we need them.”

“Anything else?” Iris asked, looking up at Caitlin.

Barry appeared next to her. “Van’s ready. And I am standing by to sit on my ass.”

“That’s everything,” Caitlin said. “Let’s go.”

“Yes, Doctor Snow,” they chorused.

“ _That is not helping_!”

* * *

Clariss sat slumped in the passenger seat of the civilian Humvee he’d borrowed from the base. He’d never admit it, but while it had what he needed to carry himself and his equipment into Central City, it was far too conspicuous and actually a lot less comfortable than he thought.  

After a twenty-minute wait, during which he’d finished his coffee, listened to passing cars splash through the puddles on the road from the bridge and played a couple of games of _Angry Birds_ , Staff Sergeant Rico opened the other door and got back in. In her speed gear, she looked like she should be driving a motorbike instead of a car; all she was missing was the helmet, which was in the back along with the extra layer of the suit, which allowed it to accelerate.

“Don’t you think this is overkill?” he asked.

“I don’t give a shit what you think,” she responded. “Where’s the teleporter?”

“Somewhere off Landon Avenue,” Clariss told her.

“Is that it?”

“Relax, staff sergeant,” he said. “When we get closer I’ll ping the tracer and it’ll take us right to her.”

Rico nodded and started driving. It was a hot day, humid after last night’s storms, but she shot Clariss an irritated glance when he turned on the air conditioning.

“Aren’t you hot in that, though?”

“No.”

“Where are you from, anyway? I never asked.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Well?”

She didn’t take her eyes off the road. “San Diego.”

“Okay. How about your name? I can’t keep calling you ‘staff sergeant’ all the time.”

“Then call me Rico.”

Clariss was sick of talking to the side of her head. “Hey, I’m just trying to be friendly. That’s what the colonel wants.”

They stopped at a set of lights and she finally looked over at him. “Doctor, why do you think I’m here?”

“In case the Flash…” he began, trying not to show any nerves.

“No. I’m here to stop you fucking up again. That’s what the colonel wants. As soon as we get eyes on the teleporter, you trigger your device and I’ll do the rest. If you don’t, I’ll shoot her myself. Then I’ll put one in your leg and say it was the cops.”

Clariss gave a mild laugh. “Maybe afterwards, the colonel will give me a Purple Heart.”

Rico went back to watching the traffic. They drove on. About ten blocks from their destination, Clariss spotted an accessible alley.

“Pull over, I’ll give you your shot.”

When they were safely into the alley, Rico unzipped her sleeve. Clariss pressed the injection gun to the inside of her well-muscled arm and triggered the serum. Her pupils dilated and her breathing quickened. Clariss knew from experience that under her skin, her pulse was racing. As always, he timed it. Thirty-four seconds until her respiration returned to normal.

Rico had been a fantastic find. By some quirk of genetics, the serum’s effect on her manifested as heightened senses, quickening her reactions to the point where she was able to use the version of the accelerator suit that Professor Hunter had been able to reconstruct. But just as important was her mental discipline, which allowed her to de-tune her powers so that she could function at normal speed. That required concentration. Clariss watched as she repeated the exercise he’d taught her: fixing her eyes on the smallest hand of her watch until she felt each tick lasting for a second again.

After another minute, her pupils returned to normal. Without speaking, she turned the ignition and pulled the Hummer back onto the road. Clariss stayed tense for a block, but her driving was as smoothly as before.

Clariss checked his watch. Ninety minutes until the serum’s effects started to fade. More than enough time to find Shawna Baez, even if the Flash did try to interfere.

* * *

Caitlin visualised the area of the city around the cell tower as she drove towards it. Five blocks in every direction. Twenty-five in total. Shawna could be on any one of them and there was no way to know which until they were close enough for Cisco’s tracer to work; two blocks at least.

The only logical course of action was a grid search. The only choice was the one she faced as she reached the corner of 23rd and Colfax: keep going and sweep north-south or turn and sweep east-west. She chose north, hoping it was the right one, knowing there was no way to tell.

As soon as they passed the junction, Iris started watching the sidewalks. Cisco, crammed between and behind them in a third seat that wasn’t exactly safe or legal, kept his eyes on the receiver. Caitlin didn’t know if she should be driving faster or slower, so kept her speed normal as they drifted ten blocks up, seeing nothing. She turned, then turned again, and headed down 24th.

“Can’t you narrow it down?” she asked the radio.

“I’m sorry,” Barry said from the lab. “Cisco?”

Cisco barely glanced up from his readout. “Sorry, Caitlin.”

She kept driving. She’d made her choice; she was going to stick to it. Two more streets went by with no result. They were almost at the tower. They’d passed two of the red-brown low-rise apartment blocks, a three-storey parking lot, a bowling alley and a couple of takeaway places whose house special was probably salmonella. Caitlin wished she could cut down the search to something less random. She thought if she could guess where Shawna would be, she could have Barry look it up and guide them there. But with a sudden surge of guilt she realised she knew nothing about Shawna beyond her fondness for liquor and Mexican food. And that left her no choice but to keep driving and hope.  

There was still no sign of her when they reached the cell tower itself, extending from the roof of a yellow-walled apartment block. Caitlin had to wonder how that affected the rents. She was just about to ask Iris when the radio beeped and Barry said, “Uh oh.”

“What? What happened?”

“There’s another signal coming through the network,” Barry replied. “And… I think Shawna’s tag just answered. It’s a location ping.”

Caitlin put her foot down. The van jumped the speed limit and she came within a hairsbreadth of running the next lights. “Clariss must be looking for her. Did you see where the tracker is?”

“Not exactly,” Barry said. “Somewhere west of you.”

“Caitlin, slow down,” Iris said.

“We’re running out of time,” Caitlin responded.

“I know, but you can’t help if we get pulled over.”

Caitlin let out a breath and took her foot off the gas. Their speed dropped just in time. There was a patrol car sitting at the next junction. They turned past it, heading down Morton Avenue. They’d cut the square in half but it was still so big.

“Oh!” Cisco exclaimed. “I’ve got something. Keep going.”

Caitlin barely glanced at him. She kept her eyes on the road, but out of the corner of her eye she could see the receiver’s readout rising.

“Now right,” Cisco said, as soon as the dial started to drop.

Caitlin turned. The dial dropped even further.

“Oh, sorry, left.”

“Damn it, Cisco!”

She had to go a block down and then swing through the entrance to an auto shop to get pointed back the right way. The receiver was climbing again. Shawna had to be on this block somewhere. And she was still alive.

“Barry, do you know where Clariss is?” Iris asked.

“No. I got nothing. Wait… another ping. Guys, I think he’s getting close.”

Caitlin could hear the urgency in his voice and the frustration. It must be taking all his willpower to stay in the Cortex and keep reporting.

They passed a market, and the dial dipped again. Caitlin didn’t even bother with the rules of the road this time. She accelerated and swung the van around through a chorus of screeching horns into the lot out front.

“She’s here,” she said at the same time as Cisco.

Caitlin left Iris to grab the radio as they jumped out the van and jogged into the store. Eight aisles wide. Fresh fruit, then bread, then soda, then the canned lane where Shawna Baez was standing with a basket over one arm staring thoughtfully a tin of soup.

“Shawna!” Caitlin yelled.

Shawna looked up. She saw them at the top of the aisle and froze. Caitlin saw her eyes go wide, then she looked over her shoulder towards the stock room entrance at the back of the store.

There was no time to debate, or beg, or do anything but tell the truth. “Shawna, Clariss is coming,” Caitlin said, keeping her voice level and delivering a prognosis that left no room for argument. “If you run now, you’ll die.”

“Come with us,” Iris called.

“Yeah, we can help you,” Cisco added.

Shawna stared at Caitlin for a long moment, and then took one last look behind her. Then she dropped her basket and ran towards them.

“You’d better have a plan,” she hissed.

“We do,” Caitlin answered as they hurried into the parking lot.

“I’m not going back to your lab.”

“You don’t have to.”

They reached the van. Caitlin fumbled with the keys, but she wasn’t going to do the slasher movie thing now.

“We’ve got her,” Iris told the radio.

“Hurry,” replied Barry’s distorted voice. “I just got another ping and I think it’s right on top of you.”

Caitlin instinctively looked up. Across the street, a Humvee, a black tank with tires, pulled to a stop. There were two people inside. A small woman with cropped dark hair, dwarfed by the car she was driving. And Clariss. He’d seen them. He must have.

“Caitlin!” Barry shouted.

He’d forgotten to disguise his voice. He’d seen the signal through the network. The bomb.

She heard a sharp intake of breath to her side. Shawna’s eyes met hers; wide, desperate and pleading.

And nothing happened.

Shawna let her breath out and gasped another. She pressed a hand to her breast-bone, waiting. The next was almost a giggle as they looked away from each other and towards Cisco.

The screen on his jamming device was flickering with indecipherable code, and there was a light blinking green next to it.

Cisco grinned. “Relax, Shawna, I got you.”

“Get in!” Iris shouted.

She pulled the door open. Shawna jumped in first and hesitated for a second, then folded up behind the driver’s seat. Cisco was next and Iris was pulling the door closed by the time Caitlin reached the other side. Clariss was moving towards them, so she threw caution to the wind and slammed her foot down. The van fought for grip on the slippery asphalt, lurched forward and bounced over the sidewalk and onto the road, another car skidding to a stop to avoid them.

Caitlin checked her mirror and turned left, trying to shake the Humvee through the opposing traffic. It didn’t work, the gigantic SUV created a gap with brute intimidation, but they’d gained a dozen yards.

“Iris, call your dad. Give him Clariss’ plates.”

“Right,” Iris said, and dug in her purse. “Wait… how is there no signal?”

“Oops,” Cisco said.

“What do you mean ‘oops’?” Iris snapped.

“I maybe overdid it with the jamming,” he replied.

Caitlin rolled her eyes and made another turn. There was always something. Clariss was still behind them and they might not have any way to call for help.

“You still there, Flash?” she shouted at the radio.

“Yeah!” Barry answered. “You need me?”

“Caitlin!” Iris yelled.

There was a thump as something landed on the van’s running board. Caitlin looked up as the black-clad speedster tried to steady her gun against the window. Without thinking, Caitlin hit the brakes. The deceleration threw everyone forward and it hurled the Racer off the side of the van. She landed in the middle of the street, rolling over before springing up again.

Caitlin looked into her mirror; the Humvee was looming behind them. She gunned the accelerator, heading straight for the Racer and then desperately pulled the wheel left. The van bounced into the middle of the road and was heading straight for the opposite sidewalk when something hit the back and they slewed the rest of the way around.

They went through a red light and Caitlin had to pull into the oncoming traffic to avoid being sideswiped. Then she saw the Racer in the passenger-side mirror and skidded to the right, forcing her to drop back to avoid being sandwiched between the van and a row of parked cars.

Caitlin hit the breaks to turn and even then they went around the next corner on three wheels. The Racer went past the junction, but that only bought them a few seconds grace before she was back in pursuit, bearing down on them with the Humvee not too far behind.

“Alright!” Shawna screamed. “Call the fucking Flash!”

* * *

Barry stood in the Cortex, already in his suit, not willing to waste even a tenth of a second when his friends needed him. His iron grip on the console was all that kept him in place. He watched the blip of the van’s tracer turn onto Crawford Avenue, heard Shawna’s yell through the radio and didn’t wait for confirmation.

He would have broken the sound barrier on the way, only there wouldn’t have been time to slow down again. He was moving as fast as he dared through the city traffic, dodging vehicles like they were standing still.

It took him nine seconds to reach them, and that felt like too much time. He joined Crawford behind the chase, overtook a police car and the Humvee, and slowed down just enough so that he wouldn’t break anybody’s bones when he ploughed into the Racer.

As it was, the slight figure was thrown forward by the impact and skidded uncontrollably along the asphalt, cushioned by her adapted motorcycle gear. With her down, Barry turned around, standing in the middle of the street as the road-going apartment block hurtled towards him.

He waited, forming a plan, smiling and wondering if Clariss really was dumb enough to try and run him over, until he was absolutely certain that the vehicle was too close to react and the road was clear.

But then he felt the air shifting behind him. He twisted, seeing the Racer lunging and feeling something tearing through the suit and drawing a burning line across his abdomen. That spun him around and he barely registered that the Humvee was much too close, leaving him with no choice but to throw himself off the road and across the sidewalk, narrowly avoiding a glass shop front and hitting a wall hard enough that he almost dislocated his shoulder.

He pressed a hand against his side and winced. There was blood seeping through the gash in the suit. Mercifully, it wasn’t much, and the suit’s lining could act like a bandage as long as he didn’t overdo it. Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to be an option, because the Humvee blew through a huge puddle, turning right with the Racer following and a patrol car in pursuit. His only comfort was that he was certain he’d seen Caitlin turning left, but he couldn’t risk Clariss finding them again.

Barry reached the corner saw no sign of the lab van. “Iris, where are you headed?” he asked.

“North!” Iris replied into his headset. “What about you?”

“I’m trying to drive them south.”

“Good,” Caitlin said. “We need time.”

“You’ll get it,” he promised.

He headed for the Racer as she overtook a bus. This time he was cautious, closing as fast as before but dropping his speed just out of arm’s reach. There was a blur of motion as a black-bladed bayonet knife flashed through the air where his ribs would have been. She made another backward slash, but again Barry fell back.

He’d been watching the knife. He hadn’t seen her draw the pistol with her other hand. She’d remembered he was fast enough to catch bullets, which was why she didn’t aim that at him. She fired three times, straight at the patrol car behind them and the two cops inside.

Barry changed direction as the world froze. The little brass rounds were crawling through the air, but they were further away every instant as he forced himself up to full speed, rushing towards them, snatching one and then then another just as the body of the car loomed in front of him. He’d lost sight of the third bullet but there was no time to look, only enough time to leap onto the bonnet, spring over the roof and try and land on the far side. He heard the dull, drawn-out thump and realised that the last shot had been aimed not at the windshield but at the tires.

The car slid over, screeching towards the sidewalk. Barry reversed direction again and got ahead of it, sweeping a distracted pedestrian out of the way and pulling the cops out of the vehicle in the split-second before it smashed into a lamppost.

The bus blocked his view as he turned back to the road and for a horrible instant, he was afraid the Racer was going to use that as a distraction too. But it lumbered on, just in time for him to see Clariss’ Humvee roar around a corner into a side street.

“Go get him, Flash!” one of the cops called.

Barry nodded and obeyed. He reached the turning in a second, and saw the Humvee with the Racer behind it. There was nothing ahead of him but a long, straight alleyway, barely wide enough for the huge car, populated by trash cans and dumpsters that Clariss was mercilessly smashing out of his way. There was nothing to slow Barry down but a single puddle that he left a jet wake in as he hurtled through it. There were no turnings at all and Barry knew he could catch the car before it reached the far end.

And then he remembered what Cisco had told him and desperately skidded to a halt.

He barely managed it, leaning all the way back like he was skiing. The water from the puddle rose in a wave in front of him. The particles sprayed through the air and then froze, glittering like diamonds in the sunlight.

Five feet from where Barry had stopped, the dust in the air was hanging absolutely stationary. There was no wind, and bits of rubbish were suspended, unmoving, in front of him.

The Racer stood, so near and yet so far, looking at him from the other side of the Turtle’s field. Barry gave her a grin.

“Almost had me.”

He rapidly worked out a route around the field to the now-stationary Humvee and its driver. He turned, and was about to take off when the Racer called, “Flash!”

He stopped and looked back. She was holding something in one hand, held out so he could see it. A small, square transmitter.

“The Van Buren Bridge,” she said. “Four bombs. Two minutes.”

“What?” Barry responded.

She didn’t say anything. She pressed the button on the remote.

“One fifty-five.”

Barry didn’t even waste time swearing. He just turned and ran.  

“Cisco!” he called into the radio. “I’ve got a problem here!”

“We’ve got problems here too, man!”

“It’s the Racer, she’s put bombs on the bridge! Call 911!”

Cisco swore in Spanish. “Not this again!”

He had a point. The city’s criminals had rapidly picked up the idea that if they wanted to get away from the Flash, all they had to do was set off some sort of disruption at the wrong end of town and send him off there. Bombs were popular, although they usually just added to the charge sheet when the CCPD caught up with whoever thought this was such a great idea.  But it still pissed him off that they tried it.

The knife wound was burning by the time he reached the river, but he ignored it. There were more important things to focus on. The Van Buren Bridge was a mile long, linking midtown Central City to downtown Keystone. It was a suspension bridge; two enormous arches of criss-crossed steel supporting a four-lane roadway and a pedestrian path on either side. It was usually busy, and today was no exception. At a glance, Barry could tell that a blast anywhere on it might kill or injure dozens of people. He didn’t want to think about what four might do.

There was no time to block the road; doing it wrong would just strand traffic in the middle and he couldn’t risk that if he wasn’t fast enough. He had a hundred and five seconds. First question: where were the bombs? The Racer might have speed, but she couldn’t get into the locked areas and would have to have been subtle, or someone would have seen something. That ruled out anywhere which required special access. And he told himself they were trying to delay him, so there was no point putting the bombs where they would do no damage or in a place where they couldn’t be found.

He blasted from one end of the bridge to the other and back again. Nothing so simple as a package on the sidewalk, no suspiciously parked cars. Somewhere less obvious.

He looked up, at the structure of the bridge itself. His eyes caught an odd lump on one of the big cables, ten feet from the ground and just in front of the gate that stopped people from clambering up and hurting themselves. There was nothing like it on any of the other cables either.

He ran up to it, slowing for balance, gripping the guidewires that ran at waist height above the cable. It was a toolbox, but no maintenance engineer would have been stupid or careless enough to leave it here. He checked the lid for anything that looked like a trigger, but didn’t have time to be any more cautious before he opened it.

“Cisco! I’ve found one!”

“What’s it look like?”

Barry scanned the interior of the box. He’d learned more about explosives in the last year than he ever wanted to know. Joe had even found someone from the bomb squad to give him some lessons.

“C-4, I think. A couple of pounds. A timer. The detonator’s rigged. And there’s something else. A little circuit board built around a chip. The chip’s got an X and a Z on it. It says… D-E-A-C-C-M-3-D.”

Cisco swore again. “That’s an accelerometer. If you’d just grabbed it and ran, it would have gone off.”

“Cisco, I don’t have time to disarm this, I need to find the others!”

There was a long pause. The timer ticked past ninety seconds.

“Okay, well, what if I just picked it up? If it’s rigged for running, maybe it won’t blow if I just walk.”

He didn’t wait for an answer. Eight-five seconds. He put his gloves under the toolbox and very cautiously lifted it. It didn’t go off.

He stumbled back down the cable, holding the bomb in both hands, leaning on the guidewires for support. Every step might have been his last, but he kept moving, trying not to think about the blast or the timer or the other bombs, just concentrating on his feet until he dropped back onto the path.

Only then did he become aware that there were people watching him. The cars had slowed and there was a small crowd gathered at the entrance, aiming their cell phones his way. The people of Central City had learned fast; when the Flash ran by it was exciting, but if he stopped where you were, then be somewhere else.

“Clear the bridge!” he yelled. “There’s a bomb!”

They crowd didn’t need to be told twice, they retreated back towards the city, pulling their more curious members along. He hoped the cops were close. Both lanes of traffic were still open; he had no time to deal with the cars.

“Cisco, I’ve got seventy seconds. What do I do?”

“Get rid of it!”

“How?”

“I don’t know. It depends on the charge needed to trip the detonator, and that’ll be wired.”

“You mean how much acceleration I need to set it off?”

“Right.”

Barry looked around desperately. One bomb in his arms. Three more to go. Just over a minute and no way to dispose of any of them without setting them off.

Except the river itself.

Acceleration under gravity was thirty-two feet per second squared, not counting air resistance. Even if he was wrong, the bridge’s steel parapet would absorb a lot of the blast. And the Racer was a Marine. She’d sworn to protect other Americans. Just how seriously did she take that oath, even now?

“Cisco, I’m going to drop the bomb into the river.”

Cisco’s next words were in Latin. Barry knew a prayer when he heard one. He held the toolbox out over the edge of the bridge and let it go.

He threw himself flat, hands over his ears, mouth open to stop the shockwave bursting his eardrums, waiting to feel the blast. But it didn’t come.

“Barry?”

Barry grinned. “One down.”

Fifty-five seconds. He took off towards the centre of the bridge. He had a pretty good idea where he was going to find another device. He was right. On the first arch he saw another toolbox beside one of the access ladders. He opened it, just to be sure, then closed it again and gently carried it down. He waited for a gap in the traffic and dropped it as well, well away from the supports and taking cover himself just in case.

Forty seconds. Half way home.

But two more circuits of the bridge and he couldn’t see any more toolboxes. Nothing stood out on the superstructure or any of the fixtures. The road itself was clear, he’d checked it every single time. But, he realised, he hadn’t checked the signs.

An accident on the bridge would be a nightmare for the emergency services of either city, so there were more than a dozen reminders of the 40 miles an hour speed limit. Thirty seconds to go and Barry found another nondescript box wedged behind one of those. His breath caught as he shifted it, but he was running out of time for subtly.

The police still hadn’t arrived. Cars and trucks were still trundling across the bridge, and there were still groups of pedestrians who had no chance of making it to the shore before the time ran out. He didn’t have time to get them off and the last bomb could be anywhere.

“Ten seconds, Barry!” Cisco called.

Barry squeezed his eyes shut and time around him froze. He ran back through every single instant that had passed since he’d arrived at the bridge. Everywhere he’d stepped, everywhere he’d looked, everything he’d seen. Then he went further. Every time he’d driven, walked or run across the Van Buren Bridge. Was there anything he hadn’t checked?

Yes. Yes, there was. They’d been hiding in plain sight the entire time, so obvious he’d gone straight past them over and over again. Four trash cans, just before the start of the pedestrian paths, put there and covered in signs so people wouldn’t drop their trash in the river.

He tore through the ones at the Central City end first, sending a stream of snack wrappers and cans into the air. Before it had even hit the ground he crossed the bridge almost fast enough to make it shake, arriving at the far end and digging through the other two. He got lucky this time, one was almost empty and the other barely had anything to cover the metal box.

No time left for finesse, not with five seconds on the clock. But he still had to rein in his speed and only jog across the path and out over the water. He threw the box with no time left.

“Get down!” he shouted. “Everybody –!”

He felt the blasts through the superstructure. The last bomb went off in mid-air. It was joined by three more explosions that shook the bridge as they blew torrents of water out of the lake like depth charges in a submarine movie. The water droplets fell back in miniature showers, splashing against the supports. But the Van Buren Bridge was built of Keystone steel, and it would take a lot more than that to bring it down.

The drivers were another matter. Barry had barely enough time to start breathing again when heard the screech of brakes behind him and a long, drawn out crash. He spun as a car bounced off the barrier at the bridge’s centre and another slammed into it. There was a dull thud from the Central City end and then another tearing impact.

“Cisco, how close are the ambulances?”

“Three minutes.”

Barry hesitated, but only for a microsecond. Clariss and the Racer weren’t worth somebody’s life, and Caitlin knew what she was doing. He turned and ran towards the accidents.

* * *

Caitlin threw the van around a last corner, ran it a dozen yards down a bumpy alleyway and then brought it to a shuddering halt. She counted to ten, but there was no sign of Clariss or the Racer behind them. Hopefully Barry could either catch them or keep them occupied.

“Here?” Iris exclaimed.

“Here,” Caitlin confirmed. “Cisco, can you watch the radio? We’ll call if we need you. Shawna, we’re going to take the device out.”

“Sure,” Shawna said. “Why not?”

“Wait, Caitlin,” Cisco said, and pulled something out of his pocket.

“What are these?”

“Hand warmers.”

In spite of everything, Caitlin smiled. She took the hand warmers and activated them, feeling the heat flowing into her perpetually-chilly fingers. She held them tightly, like a talisman, as she, Iris and Shawna got out of the van and opened the back doors. Iris and Shawna climbed in. Caitlin shut the doors as quickly as she could and activated the air filter.

The extra lights gave the compartment a hospital-like glare. Shawna, too tall to stand upright, looked nervously down at the table taking up most of the space as Caitlin pulled the surgical drapes over it. In spite of the chase, everything was still where it needed to be. She made a note to thank Barry for being careful as well as fast.

“Shawna,” she said, “I need you to take your shirt off and lie down on the table. You can face towards the door. We haven’t moved. You can leave if you want, but if you want to stay then I need you to do everything I say. Okay?”

Shawna stared at her, then at Iris, and then nodded. “Okay, Doctor Snow.”

She pulled off her t-shirt, undid her bra and lay down, her head facing towards the rear of the van, crossing her arms and resting her chin on them. The marks of Clariss’ implant were still easily visible. Caitlin glanced at the ultrasound, considering taking a pre-operative look, but there simply wasn’t time. Instead she started assembling her supplies. She threw a surgical mask to Iris.

“Okay, Shawna. I’m going to put some iodine on your back and then give you a small local anaesthetic. It shouldn’t hurt.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Iris asked.

“Not for the moment,” Caitlin said, pulling on her gloves.

“There is,” Shawna said. “There’s something you can do for me. You’re a reporter, right? So report. I want a record. In case… in case this doesn’t work.”

“Shawna…” Iris began.

Shawna raised her head to meet Iris’ eyes. “Please? For when you put this bastard on trial.”

“Alright,” Iris said. She produced her cell phone and aimed the camera at Shawna’s face. “Just… tell me what happened to you.”

Caitlin gently painted the iodine over the old scar and the skin around it. She checked and double checked that she had everything ready. She laid the surgical drapes over Shawna’s back, manoeuvring the gap so she could see the device. She felt Shawna shiver and bite back a squeak as she slipped a needle under her skin and injected the anaesthetic. It would take a few minutes to work, long enough to sterilise her instruments and for Shawna to give what they all fervently hoped was not a valediction. 

“My name is Shawna Baez. I’m… I’m a metahuman. I can teleport from one place to another. A month ago I was kidnapped by a man called Doctor Edward Clariss. He put a homing device under my skin, and a bomb so I’d do what he told me. The… bomb would go off if I left the city or… if I didn’t do obey orders. He made me break into Mercury Labs and steal a machine for him. He said if I didn’t, he’d kill me. He tried to kill me again today.” She let out a shiver of bitter laughter. “The… the Flash and his friends saved me.”

“That’s good,” Iris said quietly. She panned the camera over Shawna’s back to the scar and then turned the lens towards herself. “I’m Iris West with _Central City Picture News_ , speaking as a witness that everything you’ve just heard is true. Doctor Caitlin Snow of STAR Labs is about to try to remove the bomb. God, I hope this works.”

She shut the camera off and turned to Caitlin. “Are you ready?”

Caitlin hit the intercom. “Cisco, anything from the Flash?”

“Umm… it’s kinda complicated. He’s umm… busy. But I think we’re clear.”

She had no time to worry about that. “Okay, help him. I’m going to start now, so please can he not come back until we’re done.” She shut off the link before he could answer. “Shawna?”

Shawna gave a firm nod. “I’m ready.”

Caitlin lifted a scalpel. “Iris… could you hold her hand? Shawna, try to relax and stay still.”

In most surgeries, the skin was marked first. Caitlin just used the line of the old scar as a guide. The scalpel slipped through the skin with barely any pressure. Caitlin waited for an instant, just in case she’d got the anaesthetic wrong, but Shawna stayed still. Iris was kneeling in front of the gurney, holding onto Shawna’s hands and whispering to her. She glanced up for a second and nodded.

Caitlin cut downwards through the dermis. There was only a small amount of resistance and very little blood. She made the incision a little larger than the scar, just to be safe, and then used forceps to part the skin and expose the device resting on the layer of yellowish connective tissue.

It was exactly as she’d expected. Five disks, the largest and thickest in the centre and the others grouped around it. Caitlin had a horrible feeling the explosive charge was in the middle, and wondered briefly if three of the four smaller disks were the transmitting and receiving apparatus. But it was the fourth one, the one at the bottom end, that made her freeze.

“Oh no.”

“What?” Shawna shouted, twisting her head. “What’s wrong?”

“Caitlin?” Iris asked, more levelly, doing her best to hold Shawna still.

Caitlin made a quick movement, pulling the flaps of skin back over the device and took a step back. “Part of the implant is a micro-thermometer,” she said. “I think it’s supposed to sense if the temperature drops lower than your body temperature.”

“And if it does, it’ll go off, right?” Shawna said.

Caitlin didn’t answer. They could both make an educated guess.

“So sew it back up,” Iris said.

“I can’t,” Caitlin responded. “It’s exposed to the air now. The temperature is already dropping. There might not be time.”

“Oh god,” Shawna muttered. “Oh god, I don’t wanna die. Do something, please!”

Caitlin did the first thing she thought of: grabbed the hand warmers, ran a quick streak of alcohol over them and laid them around the incision. That might buy them time, but it didn’t change the facts. They had to get the device out of Shawna and it had to be done fast, but she probably wouldn’t be able to pull it more than an inch away before the air temperature triggered the bomb. Barry might be fast enough to get the device out in time, but not with Clariss and the Racer keeping him occupied.

Her thoughts came to a stop. They didn’t need Barry. The cause of this entire situation might be the solution as well.

She slipped around the edge of the gurney and knelt down next to Iris. Shawna’s eyes were wide but she was somehow keeping her breathing regular and her body still.

“Shawna, can you still teleport?”

“What?”

“This is important,” Caitlin snapped. “Can you?”

“Yeah, yeah, I can still do it.”

“Okay,” Caitlin said. “We can’t get the bomb away from you, but we can get you away from the bomb.”

Iris gave her a startled side-long glance and Shawna nearly sobbed. “That’s crazy.”

“I’m willing to try. Are you?”

Shawna’s gaze firmed. “Fuck Clariss. I’m not dying like this.”

“No, you’re not,” Caitlin said. She looked to her side. “Iris, I need you to open the door and go stand outside. At least… five paces from the van. You’ll have to catch her, okay?”

“Okay,” Iris said quietly.

She grabbed a few bits of dressing from the supplies and then opened the door. A draft of heavy, city air blew in, but that hardly mattered now. Iris backed away down the alley, keeping her eyes on Shawna. As she did so, Caitlin straightened up, picked up the forceps again and laid them against the implant. She took hold of it and moved it slightly, feeling it shift against the connective tissue beneath it.

When she was confident it was loose, she took a deep breath. “Alright Shawna. On the count of three, teleport to Iris.”

Shawna trembled. Her breath was coming faster now. But she turned her head and gave Caitlin a weak smile.

“Three then go or go on three?”

Caitlin smiled back. She’d seen that movie too. “ _On_ three.”

Shawna nodded and looked away, back towards where Iris was waiting for her. Caitlin held her hand steady, rehearsing the movement it was about to make, running her mind back over how long it took Shawna to disappear.

“Alright. One… two… _three_!”

She pulled back and twisted. There was an instant of resistance and then the implant came free and she had just an instant to remember that she’d only been guessing about the power of the bomb before it went off.

The blast spun her around, throwing her against the wall of the van. Her ears rang and the fingers of her right hand were burning; the explosion had ripped the forceps right out of her hand.

“Caitlin!” Cisco shouted from somewhere behind her, and her ears cleared enough to hear him scrambling out of the cab.

“I’m okay!” she yelled back, not caring whether it was true or not, stumbling forward and nearly falling when she reached the doors.

Shawna was curled up in the road on her knees, covering herself with her arms. Iris was half wrapped around her, pressing one of the pads to the open wound on her back.

“Are you alright?” Caitlin called.

Shawna snorted with laughter, dropping her head and shaking. “Am _I_ alright?”

Cisco appeared around the side of the door. He got a good look at Shawna and froze. “Woah, okay, I’m sorry.” He spun and looked up at Caitlin. “Umm… wow. You sure you’re…”

“I’m fine,” Caitlin said. “I promise. Just a little sore. Give us five minutes.”

Cisco nodded and walked away. Caitlin inspected the inside of the van while Iris helped Shawna back to it. The implant had blown itself into shrapnel, but none of the pieces had done any serious damage. All but one of them had missed her, and that was just a small fragment which was now stuck in one of her heat collectors. Judging by the concerned once-over Iris gave her, she probably looked exactly like someone who’d had a bomb go off in their face, but her appearance could wait.

She replaced her gloves and the surgical drapes and this time Shawna was happy to lie down and let her clean and stitch up the wound. “Keep it clean,” Caitlin said, taping a patch over the fresh scar. “Change your dressing every day.”

“I know, I know,” Shawna protested.

“Have someone take the sutures out after two weeks,” Caitlin continued.

“I know! You like this with the Flash too?”

“Yeah, she is,” Iris said.

“That’s something,” Shawna muttered.

She got dressed and looked from Caitlin to Iris and back. “So what now?”

Iris looked expectantly at Caitlin. “Now…” Caitlin said. “Now I’ll get you a cab.”

She helped her patient out of the van and they walked back towards the road together. She made a quick decision and held out enough to take Shawna anywhere in the city. Shawna gave her a sharp look but took the money. It was easy enough to find a taxi; for some reason, Caitlin had never had any trouble flagging them down.

“You waiting for a thank you?” Shawna asked as the vehicle came to a stop.

Caitlin shook her head. “No. I took an oath. I hope I did better today.”

Shawna softened, just a little. “You did, Doctor Snow.”

Caitlin smiled faintly, then caught the taxi door as she made one last decision. “Shawna… that number Lisa Snart gave you. Call her. They’ll help you, if you want.”

Shawna didn’t say anything. She pulled the door closed and the cab drove away down the street. Caitlin didn’t watch it. She turned around, and wasn’t surprised to find Cisco waiting for her.

“You did the right thing,” he said.

“You don’t know what I did,” she responded.

Cisco shrugged. “Yeah, but I know you.”

They walked back towards the van, where Iris was waiting for them. Caitlin glanced over at Cisco, trying to think how to say that she felt more like herself than she had done in weeks.

Cisco caught the look, and she wondered if he understood it all without her having to say a word, because he smiled brightly. “Never be cruel, and never be cowardly,” he said. “And if you are, always make up for it.”

“What’s that?” she asked, almost certain he was quoting something.

“The Doctor’s oath.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Not one I’m familiar with.”

Cisco laughed. Another joke she didn’t get. She looked down at her hands instead, hiding a smile. Her fingers were cold again, but her heart felt very warm indeed.


	18. Parabellum

Iris wondered if she’d ever get over the oddness of writing up stories she’d actually been a part of. At least this time, she didn’t have any direct involvement she had to lie about. The story of the Flash’s confrontation with the mysterious Black Racer and the bombs on the bridge took up the rest of the afternoon. The article ended with a question mark; Clariss and the Racer had gotten away while Barry was helping the injured. Mercifully, none of the accidents had been serious.

While she wrote, Cisco persuaded Caitlin to go for a long, quiet walk by the river to help them both unwind before they started on the mystery of how Clariss had made his own metahumans. Barry barely sat still long enough for Caitlin to stitch him up before he got to work on the forensics of Dillon and Morillo’s robberies. Her dad and Crystal were doing the same back at the precinct, as well as trying to find evidence to connect Black’s operation to Barry’s shooting; evidence they could use in court.

When she’d finished her story, Iris sat for a while and then started on an angle nobody else was looking at: the woman giving the orders. Colonel Black herself.

She wasn’t that hard to find. Of the eighty-two thousand active duty members of the USMC, only seven percent were female. Iris looked up a picture, and Cisco confirmed that the formidable blue-eyed woman was the one he’d seen at the base. The first surprise was her bright smile in the picture, and the second was her given name: Amunet.

A little more digging and Iris pieced together a rough biography. Twenty years’ service in the Marines, mainly in strategic intelligence. For the last ten, she’d been applying that knowledge to the field of counter-terrorism.

That made Iris pause. She was starting to see the parts of the picture. She remembered what General Eiling had said about people like him thinking the unthinkable to keep everyone else safe. She imagined Black was the same. Counterterrorism and metahumans. Was she trying to use metahumans to fight terrorism? Or was she putting together plans to combat terrorism committed _by_ metahumans?

It sounded crazy at first, but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. Black was on the other side of the coin to Eiling. Eiling wanted to use metahumans as weapons, Black wanted to find ways to defeat them. Action and counteraction; the two essential components of an arms race.

Iris got up, stretched and went for a walk. If she was right, that told her what but it didn’t tell her who. There had to be more. She kept checking and searching, spending two more hours wading through old records and filtering the results, making a note here and there and saving promising links for later. She wasn’t even certain what she was looking for until she found it. It wasn’t in the information from the Marines or the government, it was something much closer to home.

It was a picture from some sort of rally. Black was younger; fifteen years, going by the date. Her uniform stood out amongst a row of men in suits around her. The source – the _Keystone Post_ – and the sign for the 242 District told her it had been taken across the bridge; a gathering of Keystone’s high-achieving sons – and one daughter – in support of another attempt to rejuvenate the city’s heavy industry. Iris wondered how Black had been selected, then realised who she was standing next to. Even with the age difference, she recognised him without the help of the caption. They’d both come a long way since that re-opened car plant.

It was half past seven. There was bound to still be someone at the office. The question was whether there’d be anybody at the Politics Desk. Three rings and her luck was in; Ron answered.

“Ron, it’s Iris. I was doing some background on Congressman Kenyon for an interview... Not _all_ about the Flash. But don’t you think it’s funny how we haven’t had any official comment from Washington about the metahumans? Well… anyway… I’ve just come across something and… do you know if the congressman used to know a female Marine officer called Amunet Black?”

Ron told her, and she nearly dropped her cell phone.

“That’s… okay… that’s great, Ron. Thanks. Are you staying at the office? I might need your help.”

She was out of STAR Labs ten minutes later and back at the office in half an hour, barely stopping to grab a quick dinner. Ron pointed out all the background files they had on Keith Kenyon, Representative of the district containing Central and Keystone Cities, and then went home. Iris didn’t. She spent most of the night combing through the records, assembling the jigsaw until well after midnight when she fell asleep in one of the camp beds in the upstairs offices.

Crystal picked her up at seven the next morning and drove her back to STAR Labs for the team’s pre-arranged meeting, using the building’s conference room for its intended purpose for the first time in years. Iris fortified herself with the largest mocha money could buy and went through her notes again, hoping this made as much sense in daylight as it had the night before.

The news from the other fronts wasn’t good. No sign of Morillo and Dillon; either they’d gone to ground or cleared out of the city entirely. Barry hadn’t been able to find anything his colleagues had missed, so there was still no clue as to where the robbers had been operating from. Clariss’ apartment bore all the hallmarks of a hurried flight, but her dad pointed out that was probably to stay clear of the Flash since the CCPD had no grounds to arrest him that a good lawyer wouldn’t demolish in minutes. Cisco and Caitlin acknowledged that, after what had obviously been a sleepless night, they only had theories on how the super-serum worked, and those theories were impossible to test unless they could examine Dillon or the Racer. The only bright spot was that while Caitlin would have a hard time generating a way to counteract the serum’s effects, the powers wore off on their own, though there was no way to tell how long that took. The bad news was that this seemed to indicate that a lot of people – maybe everyone – had the potential to become a metahuman and the particle accelerator was only one of the possible triggers.

When they sat back down, Barry looked over at Iris. “Please tell me you have something.”

“What were you doing all night?” her dad asked.

Iris stood and walked to the head of the table. Standing here didn’t get much less nerve-wracking with repetition. “I think I found something,” she said.

She plugged her flash drive into the room’s big screen and spent a minute trying to get it working until Cisco pointed out the button she’d forgotten to press. She showed them all the picture she’d found of Black at the rally.

Her dad spotted the connection immediately. “Hey, isn’t that…”

“Congressman Kenyon, yes,” Iris said. “Before he was elected, of course. Back when he was working with the Keystone unions.”

“Those unions got him the seat,” Crystal said.

“Except the police union,” her dad added.

“Why?” Caitlin asked.

“He was in bed with more than the unions,” Joe explained. “He had connections with the mob too. The first few times he ran, there were a lot of questions about his campaign funds.” He shrugged. “Nobody ever proved it, and they make it real hard to investigate a sitting congressman.”

“He was honest, though,” Crystal said, earning her a confused look. “He stayed loyal to the people who bought him.”

Her dad laughed. “Simon Cameron, right?”

“Wait,” Barry interrupted. “What does he have to do with Colonel Black?”

Iris gestured at the image behind her. “They used to be married.”

“ _What_?”

“Damn,” her dad whispered. “I knew he had an ex-wife… but _her_?”

“They married young,” Iris explained. “Then she was promoted and he ran for Congress. I guess neither of them thought the other was worth their career. Ron says it was an amicable divorce.”

“So she has a friend in Washington,” Cisco said.

“Yeah.” Iris nodded. “And that’s not all. I spent most of last night reading about Kenyon’s career to see if there was a connection to what Black’s doing, and there is. The congressman sits on… the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities.”

“Emerging threats,” Barry repeated. “As in metahumans?”

Caitlin cleared her throat. “Terrorism and defence science, usually. Like DARPA. But I think it’s one of those terms that can mean whatever they want it to mean.”

Iris gave her a grateful nod. “I think this is an official operation to investigate possible metahuman terrorism and the subcommittee provides oversight. Colonel Black has a history in intelligence and counter-terrorism. Kenyon may even have recommended her for the position.”

“But the government can’t possibly be sponsoring a program to create metahuman bank robbers!” Crystal exclaimed.

“You sure about that?” Cisco said.

“What about Barry?” Crystal responded. “An assassination attempt on a US citizen on US soil by a Marine Corps sniper?”

“And I’m not even the President,” Barry said.

“Barry may have a point,” Caitlin said. “This isn’t ARGUS. These people are soldiers.”

“So?” Cisco asked.

“So they swore to uphold the Constitution and obey the President,” Crystal told him.

“They also swore to obey orders, no matter what,” Cisco shot back.

“Okay,” Iris said firmly, cutting them both off. “The link between Black and Kenyon is just a theory. Black might be operating on her own, but that doesn’t seem likely since Morillo is still apparently a serving Marine. But you’re right, Cisco. What they’re doing can’t be legal and I don’t think the subcommittee would sign off on it.”

“What are you thinking?” her dad said.

Iris took another breath. “Maybe if we can figure out what Black’s orders actually are, we can get evidence to Kenyon of what she’s really doing.”

“So how do we tie her to Dillon, Morillo and the Racer?” Barry asked.

“I… I don’t know,” Iris admitted. “But I might have a way to find out what Congress knows about Black’s operation and what they _think_ they know about it.”

* * *

Congressman Kenyon was a proud native of Keystone City. Ron joked that if he could have done, he would live on the assembly line in one of its old factories. On the other hand, he also had to be taken seriously in Washington, so he owned a large, solid house in the suburbs distinctive only for its second garage. He had the sort of open-door policy that drove his staff crazy, but was ably supported by the second Mrs Kenyon who acted as his unofficial personal secretary. It was she who had confirmed that the congressman would be able to spare Iris half an hour before the first of two fundraising dinners that week.  

“You nervous?” Barry asked at the foot of the drive.

“A little,” she answered. 

She’d never interviewed a congressman before. She’d gotten quotes from his office for other people to use, but she was about to play on the good name of CCPN for something that was personal and secret even if it was important. She took a few long, slow breaths. She had her questions prepared, she had her Dictaphone and her notes. It was just like any other interview.

“Don’t worry,” Barry said. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be dead, going to see a congressman in the dumbest outfit we could find.”

That made her relax. She almost let out a very unprofessional giggle. Most of Barry’s disguise was a pair glasses with black frames so thick they hid half his face. He was slouching to hide his height and wore a mismatched jacket over a shirt with a truly hideous pattern.

“That’s the idea,” she said lightly. “In that outfit, nobody will be looking at your face.”

The house’s door opened and Mrs Kenyon came out with one of the smart-casual staff members. Iris wasn’t expecting a security detail; she’d been surprised to hear that neither representatives nor senators had them outside Washington. The man was certainly checking her out, but not like a cop would. And he was ignoring Barry.

“Ms West?” Mrs Kenyon asked.

“Thank you for arranging this meeting at such short notice, Mrs Kenyon. This is Harry. He’s an intern at the paper.”

Barry straightened up for just long enough to shake Mrs Kenyon’s hand and then shrank again. She gave him a thoughtful look and then turned back to Iris. “My husband is in his office.”

She led the way. The staffer brought up the rear. Iris glanced around. It looked like a very normal family home, devoid of ostentatious displays of status or any monuments to Kenyon himself. There was nothing to indicate that its residents spent half their time on the other side of the country. The only sign was when Iris listened carefully; it sounded like there were a lot more people in the upstairs rooms than the ones on the first floor.  

Kenyon welcomed them into an office obviously designed for audiences. There was a large computer on the desk, surrounded by paper files. The books on the shelves all seemed to be about the city. In between them were pictures of Kenyon with various local and national notables; but not too many, just enough to remind a visitor of the office’s position.

If she hadn’t spent her life around cops, she might have found Kenyon imposing. He was built like one of the city’s factories and seemed like he’d be more at home settling arguments with fists instead of words. He made no attempt to cover his shock of grey hair; he’d once said he needed it to convince people he worked for a living. But in spite of that, he had a very believable smile as he offered her a chair. He sat opposite her, keeping his eyes on her face. Barry disappeared into one of the corners, watching them both over a notepad.

“I read your column when I can, Ms West,” Kenyon said. “Even in Washington.”

“Oh…” Iris exclaimed. “That’s…” She groped for something to say, furious with herself for being knocked off balance so easily. “Thank you, congressman.”

“Some of the people I know up there think you should go into writing science fiction.”

She went cold. “Oh. And what do you think?”

Kenyon smiled again. “I think it takes a lot of courage to report on what sounds impossible. And it doesn’t matter what people who aren’t from these cities think of the Flash, or you. The ones I represent believe in him. Washington doesn’t really understand the challenges we’ve faced in the last two years, the emergence of these… metahumans. I’m working hard to convince them, but I’ve got a long way to go yet.”

Something in Iris’ brain clicked. Kenyon had been giving interviews since she was in grade school. He knew exactly how to manipulate a reporter, and that was just what he was doing. If he had his way, all she’d get was twenty minutes on how important her readers’ interests were to him and how he was the man who would go the distance for them.

She could have let him go on. This was only a cover after all. He could talk about whatever he wanted. But her professional pride refused to let him get the better of her.

“Actually, congressman,” she said. “I am interested in what Washington thinks of the metahumans.” Kenyon hesitated and she went for the opening. “It’s been more than eighteen months since the first major incidents and the closest thing to a response we’ve had from the federal government is the statement from FEMA. Don’t you think that’s odd?”

“A statement is coming,” Kenyon said.

 “From where?” Iris pressed. “Are there committees? Is there a discussion? What does the President think?”

“I can’t comment on closed hearings, Ms West,” Kenyon told her flatly.

Iris gave a quick nod, grasping the message. “What about the President? What does he think?”

“The President has made it clear he will not make any public statements about metahumans until the issue can be discussed.”

“Okay, that’s as President, but what about as a private individual? I can’t believe he’s never asked.”

Kenyon thought for a moment. “Ms West, you be very careful how you report this, but I have spoken to the President about the Flash. It was during the Burning Man incident. He asked me if I’d ever met the Flash. I said I hadn’t. He asked me if I was sure he was real. So I told him that the whole CCPD swore he’d brought in two wanted bank robbers, and if the Central City cops believed in the Flash that was good enough for me.”

Iris gave him a polite smile. Six terms had obviously mellowed Kenyon’s opinions of the police.

“If Senator Godfrey wins the election in November, do you think the policy will change?”

“If G. Gordon Godfrey becomes president, the metahumans will be the least of these cities’ problems,” Kenyon responded. “When he comes to Central City, you ask him what he thinks about them. He’ll tell you we should round them up and make them swear the pledge of allegiance till they’re blue in the face and then maybe let them go back to work as long as they report to the cops every day.”

“And you don’t believe that?” Iris asked.

“They’re still Americans,” Kenyon said. 

“But you do sit on the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities. Are metahumans classed as an ‘emerging threat’?”

Again, Kenyon thought for a while. “Some people might, Ms West, but I don’t. This might sound corny, but these are my people too. A lot of these metahumans were just everyday men and women in the wrong place and the wrong time. Hundreds of people were affected by the particle accelerator explosion, but you’ve only had to write about… ten? Twenty? Thirty? I’ve read about the ones the Flash runs around after. A lot of them were criminals before they could create sound blasts or control the weather.

“Now I don’t understand what happened to them, but I understand this. You take a petty crook and you give him a million dollars, and you’ve probably made him into a gangster. But you give a doctor a million dollars, and he can save a lot of lives. Powers didn’t make these people bad, but it did make the worse. But you tell me, you think whoever it is wearing that red suit wasn’t already a good guy?”

“I know he was,” Iris said.

“Have I answered your question?”

Iris nodded. “I think you have.”

“Well, that’s good, because if I don’t go now I’m going to be late. Have a nice evening, Ms West. And you too… Harry.”

“Thank you, congressman. Enjoy your dinner.”

Mrs Kenyon led them out. There were more people downstairs now, all of them wearing dinner jackets. Once Iris and Barry were outside, husband and wife went upstairs to change.

Iris walked thoughtfully down the drive with Barry behind her, straightening up now that he was out of sight. He waited until she was finished collecting herself.

“Well, he’s got my vote.”

Iris laughed. “Yeah, mine too. Dad’s gonna be furious.”

“That was pretty intense,” Barry said. “You two didn’t even notice me go.”

He wasn’t quite right. She had felt the flicker of light and breath of wind after she’d brought up the next election, and the second one, marking Barry’s return, just as Kenyon had started talking about the city’s metahumans. But she figured she’d let him have that.

“What did you find?” she asked.

“Kenyon’s private office. Upstairs, second door on the left. It wasn’t locked. Some of the drawers were, though.”

She nodded. “Okay. The place should be empty tonight.”

“Let’s hope so.”

He looked thoughtful. Troubled.

“What is, Barry?”

“What he said about metas just being people? Do you think he really believes that?”

“Yeah,” Iris said quietly. “I think he does.”

* * *

Iris made a show of driving away, headed two blocks out and then turned around. She parked the car at the other end of the block so she could see Kenyon’s house, then sent Barry for dinner while she kept watch. He was back five minutes later with a family portion of burritos, which of course meant one for her and four for him.

A cloudy summer evening closed in. It was starting to get humid again. Another storm was on its way, but she hoped it held off till they were done. The neighbourhood was well-lit, friendly and quiet.  A few people passed by, taking their dogs out ahead of the rain they could feel coming. Then two cars left the Kenyon house, one carrying the congressman and his wife, the other his small entourage. Iris and Barry ducked down as they went past, on the way to the fundraiser and safely out of the way for the next few hours.

Iris gave it another forty minutes, just to be sure. There were only a few lights on downstairs. She couldn’t see any in the second floor. She got the feeling that early evening wasn’t really the time you were supposed to do this sort of thing, but circumstances hadn’t left them much choice. Besides, if she had to sit here for another minute and listen to Barry fidget next to her, she was going to start screaming.

“Okay, can you check out the house?” she asked. “Make sure the coast is clear?”

Barry gave her a relieved smile – it looked like he’d seen the scream coming as well – and vanished. She barely had time to turn her head the other way before he reappeared next to her door.

“I think there are still three people there. They’re watching a movie, though. The office light is off.”

Iris took a deep breath and pulled on a pair of gloves. “Okay, grab your stuff and let’s do this.”

He nodded, and for a second the world caught fire. The light faded, and she was still hovering, held up by Barry in the dark. Then her eyes started to adapt and she could make out the details of Kenyon’s office as she slipped onto the floor. Barry hadn’t quite let go of her, he was still tense; they both listened but heard nothing but the sound of the TV downstairs.

“Let’s see what we can find,” she whispered. “ _Slowly_.”

He nodded. Speed had its advantages sometime but Barry was just as clumsy at high speed than he was the rest of the time, and they couldn’t make a mess. So they went slow, aiming faint and narrow penlights at the shelves, then carefully sliding the drawers open one at a time. The rustle of paper was horribly loud to ears straining for the sound of discovery, and even Iris’ own heart seemed to be making too much noise.

“What’s that?” she hissed to Barry as he laid a bunch of files on the desk.

“Accounts,” Barry answered. “We could find out if Joe was right?”

“ _No_.”

In ten minutes, all the obvious drawers had been examined. Kenyon kept his files very well organised and documented. Nothing seemed conspicuous by its absence.

Iris eyed the computer on the desk. “Should we try that?”

“No,” Barry said. “They wouldn’t store anything that sensitive on a home computer. Felicity could be in there in minutes. We’ll can check the locked drawers next.”

“How?”

Even in the dark, he looked guilty. “Well… you remember last year I told you about that club of cops who picked locks for fun? Well… I kinda… sorta had a few lessons.”

Iris trembled with a suppressed giggle. The Flash’s dark side. And nobody knew about it but her.

The first drawer they opened was another set of account books. This one seemed to be cataloguing donations rather than expenditures. Full names and exact amounts; hopefully nothing criminal but still potentially useful to Kenyon’s opponents. The next was personal correspondence; there were probably ten good stories in those envelopes, but Iris put them back, feeling like she’d be crossing some sort of line if she didn’t. The desk’s bottom drawer contained personal travel plans and detailed itineraries, kept locked up for security reasons.

“Is that it?” she asked.

“That’s all the drawers.”

“Nothing from Washington at all,” she said. “Is that weird?”

They paused, listening carefully and considering. A congressman had to split his time between the House and his own district. Surely he’d have to keep track of local matters in D.C. and government matters at home.

“We’ve looked everywhere,” Barry said. “Except… that.”

He gestured to the dark shape beside the window. Iris had initially taken it for another bookcase, but closer examination during the search had revealed it to be Kenyon’s liquor cabinet. There was some E.H. Taylor bourbon she assumed was for personal consumption, and some Jim Beam, Wild Turkey rye and Zodiac vodka for visitors, along with a collection of mixers.

The glass-fronted case was locked with an ornamental key, but beneath it was a solid wooden cabinet that Iris had been assuming contained a mini refrigerator. Of course, that was just what anyone who didn’t shouldn’t have been there would think. She tapped Barry on the shoulder and he went to work.

Thirty seconds passed before she heard the faint and familiar click. “Iris, check this out!”

There was a heavier, darker shape in the shadows of the cabinet’s interior. Iris shone her light along the matt-black body and keypad of a heavy-duty home safe.

“This has gotta be it.” She smiled. “Barry… those lessons. Did they include safe-cracking?”

“Not exactly,” Barry said.

“Oh.”

He gave her a mischievous smile. “But... Cisco thought we might find one, so he made me something.” He pressed a little box of components against the lock. “Okay, don’t tell Caitlin, but he made this after the Hunter case. It’ll stop an electronic lock registering how many times you’ve entered the wrong combination. So…”

His hand blurred around the keypad. The term was brute force. Simply keep trying possibilities till you hit the right one. Most systems had countermeasures to stop that kind of thing, but between Cisco brain and Barry’s speed, they could be overcome.

Less than a minute later, the safe opened.

Iris leaned close to Barry as they both scanned the inside. There were four shelves, each with several thick files. A quick look at one of the covers revealed the seal of the House of Representatives. Iris was wondering where to start when she realised that the top shelf only had one file on it. On impulse, she pulled it out and laid it open on the floor. The words Confidential, 1.4(a) stared up at her.

“Project Wayland,” she read. “An investigation by the United States Marine Corps into the involvement of humans with abnormal abilities into… Barry, this is it!”

“You want me to read it?” Barry asked.

“Just a minute.”

Iris crept over to the door, pressed her ear against the wood and listened. All she could hear was the distorted sound of the movie as it ran on.

“Okay, go.”

The pages of the briefing folder hissed between Barry’s fingers. The penlight danced in a mad kaleidoscope of patterns as they tracked over the words.

Then Barry dropped the file and sat back on his haunches. “Jesus,” he whispered.

“What?”

He blinked in the darkness. “Umm… okay… wow. Whoever wrote the hypothesis has watched more bad movies than Cisco. They’re… they’re not just worried about American metas, domestic terrorism. They’re trying to plan for metas from other countries too.”

“What… like… Switzerland?”

Barry gave her a baffled look, taking a long second to catch on. “No. Like… Iran. North Korea. They think it’s possible that anybody with advanced enough energy research could replicate the particle accelerator accident. And they think some people might even try it on purpose.”

“Could they do that?”

“Clariss thinks they could,” Barry told her. “There’s a whole report from six months ago. He thinks some people are naturally predisposed to becoming metas. They just need the right… push. He doesn’t say how but he said you might not need an accelerator to do it.”

“What else is in there?”

“Umm... stuff about Morillo’s gun and helmet. War game plans to fight some of the metas we’ve seen. They had a whole report on me and what they think I can do. There’s another one on the Rogues. And… a briefing on some sort of specialised soldier specifically to fight metas.”

The thought of a whole file on Barry’s strengths and weaknesses made her stomach twist, just like it had done with Eiling. Barry wasn’t a war game or an enemy of the state. He was her best friend and one of the bravest people she knew.

“We have to have a copy of this,” she whispered.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. If we’re going to stop Black, we need every detail. We’ll have to copy it.”

She gestured to the office copy machine on the other side of the room. Barry gave her a startled look.

“Iris, this is like four hundred pages.”

“I’m sure,” she said. “We have to do it now. Are you going to help me or not?”

He gave her an irritated look, the one that told her she shouldn’t have to ask that question because he’d help her no matter what he thought. He scooped up the file and carried it over while she examined the copier. It didn’t seem to need a code and there was plenty of spare paper around. She made sure the tray was full before she slipped the report on Project Wayland into the feeder and hit the button. She went tense as the machine groaned at her, then hissed as it started spitting out copies.

“Just like Daniel Ellsberg,” she muttered.

“Who?” Barry said from near the door.

Iris sighed. “Please tell me you know who that is.”

Barry gave a little shrug. “Watergate?” he guessed hopefully.

“Not exactly.” Iris glanced over her shoulder. The copier would be running for ten minutes at least and talking beat feeling her nerves stretch further and further as they listened for noise from downstairs. “In the late sixties, the government put together this huge report on American involvement in Vietnam, from, like, the forties onwards. The report showed that every government since Truman had been lying to Congress, the Senate and the people about what they were doing there and why they were doing it. It was totally classified, but one of the guys who wrote it, Dan Ellsberg, thought the American people deserved to know the truth. So he took this massive report, thousands of pages, and he photocopied it one page at a time and gave it to the _New York Times_. Think Wikileaks by hand, without the internet.”

“Wow,” Barry breathed. “And the _New York Times_ published it?”

“Yeah. Well, not every single page, but enough. Nixon’s government tried to stop them but the Supreme Court backed the _Times_.”

“So… what happened to Ellsberg?”

“He came forward and confessed, and he was put on trial for the leak. But at his trial it came out that the government had illegally tapped his phone and the same guys who went on to do the Watergate burglary had broken into his psychiatrist’s office looking for something to use against him. So the case was thrown out.”

“Wow,” Barry said again.

Iris took a breath and looked over her shoulder. The copier was faster than she thought. It was almost done. Barry quickly and quietly added some more paper just to be sure.

Then they heard the footsteps on the stairs.

Barry tensed, his gaze darting from her to the window. Iris held up her hand. The copier gave a last mumble and then fell silent. The steps reached the top of the stairs. They both stood absolutely still, as the steps creaked down the corridor. A door opened and closed. Neither of them moved. Iris held Barry’s gaze through the darkness, waiting to give the signal if they had to.

Then a flush from the bathroom. The footsteps came back along the corridor and thumped down the stairs, fading away into the background noise of the house. Somebody asked what they’d missed.

Iris let out a relieved sigh. “Oh my god.”

“Yeah, let’s get out of here,” Barry agreed.

He carefully rearranged the original file and put it back in the safe. She collected the copy and dropped the heavy mass of paper into her bag. They checked that the room and all of its drawers looked undisturbed. Then she gave Barry a nod and they were gone. 

* * *

Barry could have run Iris back to the lab in minutes, but she insisted on driving. He read the Project Wayland file again and again. It was weird, the faster he took in the information, the faster it started to slip away. He got around that by making notes, summarising the different sections of the report. Iris glanced at the result and pointed out that the results of super-speed summarising in a moving car had better just be for him as nobody else could read his writing.

They got back to the lab and found Caitlin and Cisco in the middle of their dinner. Barry wished he could persuade them that just because he had to spend most of his time there didn’t mean they did as well. On the other hand, it might be more than just loyalty to him. In spite of everything that had happened in this building, this was where they felt safest: at STAR Labs, with each other.

“Did you find anything?” Cisco asked.

“Yeah,” Barry said, dropping the copied sheets onto the table. “This is the whole report on Black’s project.”

Cisco poked the pile. “You get a summary, maybe?”

“Sorta,” Barry answered. “I made some notes but I need to type them up. But we’ve got to make more copies of this.”

“Or you could just scan them,” Caitlin pointed out.

“Right…”

“Barry, why don’t you do your notes?” Iris said. “I’ll scan the report. You guys meet us in the Cortex in ten minutes. Finish your food. Please.”

Barry took a moment to marvel that they took the advice without complaint, and then ran to the Cortex. It only took him a minute to type up the notes and print off a couple of copies, which was good because Caitlin and Cisco joined him just as he was finishing up, having found a loophole in their obedience to Iris.

“Iris was right,” Caitlin murmured, looking at the notes. “Except for Morillo’s equipment, this is presented as an entirely theoretical exercise.”

“Yeah, there’s nothing about Dillon or the Racer,” Barry agreed. “And it doesn’t say the guy using that gun was about to be court-martialled.”

Iris jogged into the room. “The project’s official remit is on the third page. Black’s gone way over it.”

“Why, though?” Barry asked.

“Come on, guys,” Cisco said. “It’s no good just drawing plans. You don’t really know if something works till you actually build it.”

“You’ve got a point,” Iris said.

Caitlin chewed thoughtfully on her lip. “I’d be fascinated to see Clariss’ data on metahuman potential. From a purely research point of view, of course. If metahumans are going to start emerging from causes other than the particle accelerator, then we need to be aware of it. Especially if the percentage of the population with that potential is as high as he claims.”

 “Ten percent?” Cisco said, quoting the number in the report. “I really hope not.”

“Only under the correct conditions,” Caitlin responded. “Which could well vary depending on the subject.”

Barry raised his hands. “You can both read the report later. But right now, we’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do about Black.”

“Yeah, because who knows how many of her other ideas have made it off the drawing board.”

“Okay,” Iris agreed. “So we stop her. Fast. But how?”

“Well, you can’t go head-on, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Caitlin said.

“The Flash has stopped rogue metas before,” Cisco said.

“But she’s not a meta,” Caitlin said. “Or a Rogue. She’s a member of the United States armed forces. If we attacked her, we’d be declaring war on the government.”

“Okay, okay,” Cisco muttered. “What about Congressman Kenyon?”

“Even if he didn’t have us arrested for stealing this, why would he believe what we said?” Barry asked. “It’s her word against ours.”

“And if he did believe us,” Iris added. “There would have to be a hearing of the subcommittee and that probably wouldn’t be for months. Black would have plenty of time to make all the evidence disappear. And then we’d probably get arrested for breaking and entering anyway.”

“Would your paper publish this?” Caitlin asked. “Perhaps if we expose the operation…?”

Iris shrugged. “I don’t know. Not without legal advice. Maybe not even then.”

“Guys, I hate to say this…” Barry began, “but I think we need to make sure this doesn’t get out in the open.”

“What?” Cisco exclaimed. “Why?”

“Because can you imagine what would happen if the metahumans in this city found out there was a government sponsored military operation to fight them? They’d be terrified. Even the ones who’d never done anything wrong, who we’ve helped get their powers under control. They’d be scared. Everybody would be scared. There’d be a panic, somebody would do something stupid and a lot of people could get hurt.”

Caitlin leant next to Cisco and touched his arm gently. The two of them had a whole conversation in a single look. Then Cisco turned back to Barry and nodded.

“Okay, so how do we do this without starting World War Meta?”

Barry let out a slow breath and blinked. And in those fractions of a second he ran through everything they knew, everything they’d found out and all the strategies they’d discounted. Oliver had tried again and again to teach him to look at an opponent’s strengths and see how those also made them vulnerable. There was an option they hadn’t considered and he could almost see it.

“Umm… Black works for the government but she has to answer to that subcommittee…”

“We know that,” Iris said, but not impatiently, she was trying to help him along.

Barry squeezed his eyes shut and finally grasped the idea he’d been reaching for. “We can’t go to the subcommittee, but what if somebody else could?”

“Not Kenyon?”

His eyes opened again. “No. Somebody else. Somebody who’d want Black’s operation shut down because she’s playing on his turf and probably doing it with some of his budget.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Iris said.

“You’ve gotta be kidding,” Cisco whispered.

“I suppose that makes sense,” Caitlin said. “The enemy of my enemy…”

“Is a torturing, murdering bastard!” Cisco exclaimed. “Come on, Barry!”

“I know, Cisco. I know. I haven’t forgotten, trust me. But we’ve got a choice. Him, or Black, Clariss and Hunter.”

Cisco gave a short, vicious curse in Spanish and then a quick nod. Barry took that as agreement.

“Caitlin?”

Caitlin shrugged and looked at Cisco. She bit her lip and then said firmly, “The devil we know.”

Barry turned to Iris. “Tell me if this is a bad idea.”

Iris smiled. “Just be careful.” She handed him a flash drive. “This has the project file and the video of Shawna. Maybe it’ll help.”

Barry smiled back. Then he grabbed his suit and left the three of them behind, hurtling uptown at five hundred miles an hour through the damp Central City night. Another storm was breaking, and this was no time for subtlety. He ran straight up the side of the building and came to a stop on the balcony outside Eiling’s office, just in time to be illuminated by a bolt of genuine lightning.

“Would you care to step outside, general?”


	19. Unfortunate Sons

Eiling stood. There was a clatter of noise from the next room and two uniformed soldiers burst into the office and levelled their guns at the window.

“At ease!” Eiling barked. “He’s just here to talk.”

The soldiers obeyed. Eiling gave a firm nod and they retreated through the door, closing it behind them. When he was sure it was shut, the general slid the window open and stepped out onto the balcony. He peered carefully at Barry’s mask in the dim light.

“Pop the hood,” he said.

Barry considered for an instant. Eiling had known his name and face for over a year and left him alone. He pulled the mask back and let the wind whip at his hair.

“Well,” Eiling said. “Welcome back Mr Allen.”

“Did you know?” Barry asked.

Eiling shrugged. “Fifty-fifty. But it could have been someone else in the suit.”

“And now what?”

“What do you mean, ‘now what’?” Eiling said. “You came here to talk, so talk. You figure out who shot you?”

Barry bristled. He had to remind himself that Eiling had been doing this for a lot longer than he had. Eiling had known Wells.

So if Eiling was going to guess his motives as soon as he said anything, there was nothing to do but be honest.

“I don’t know who pulled the trigger,” he said. “But I know who gave the order. A Marine Corps colonel called Amunet Black. She runs a base out in the Badlands finding ways to fight metahumans. She’s even made a few herself.”

Eiling’s eyes narrowed. There was a gap in the professional arrogance. Eiling was angry. Black had surpassed everything he’d dedicated years to achieve. And it wasn’t just that. If her anti-metahuman weapons were effective, she’d render Eiling’s grand plan of a superpowered soldier redundant.

“What do you want?” Eiling growled.

“To stop her.”

“Why?”

“She tried to kill me.”

Eiling chuckled. “You don’t take that personally, _Flash_.”

Barry edged closer to the truth. “Her people have been testing the weapons and powers with armed robberies. A third one’s been linked to at least one abduction.”

“Calling the kettle black, aren’t you, Mr Allen?”

Barry ignored the jab. Eiling wasn’t just taking out his own frustration, he was trying to get as much information as he could.

“I know what her orders are,” he said. “She’s gone way past them. Her project is supposed to be theoretical.”

“And how do you know that?”

Barry held up the flash drive. Eiling looked almost impressed. He took the drive and connected it to his computer. Barry tried to keep calm and still while he skimmed the stolen information.

“You could get in a lot of trouble for having this,” Eiling remarked.

“Why?” Barry asked lightly. “I’m not injuring the government or helping a foreign power, and we don’t want to make it public. I assume you’ve got high enough clearance to read it.”

Eiling gave him a short, sharp glare and went back to the computer. He closed the document and played the video file. He didn’t even twitch listening to Shawna give what was almost her last interview. Just listening to the replay made Barry tense; Eiling glanced up and gave another grunt.

“The teleporter, did she make it?”

“No,” Barry said quietly.

“You’re a bad liar, Mr Allen. So you want me to use my contacts in Washington to get this project shut down?”

“Yeah.”

Eiling frowned. Barry could guess what he was thinking, weighing the pros and cons, trying to see all the angles. Calculating how much he had to gain against the very small risk he would have to take. Barry waited in silence.

Then Eiling shrugged. “I’d like to help you, Mr Allen, but I’ll need more than your word and a video of a wanted criminal. Bring me proof that Colonel Black has broken the law, and I’ll think about it.”

Barry pulled his hood back up. “I’ll be in touch, general.”

He left the building behind and headed back to STAR Labs. He arrived just as it started to rain. The others were waiting for him in the Cortex.

“Well?” Iris asked.

Barry shrugged. “He said he needed proof before he went to Washington.”

“But will he do it?”

“Yeah, I think he will,” Barry said. “He wasn’t going to say ‘yes’, but he didn’t say ‘no’.”

“Barry,” Caitlin said, “when he read the report, did he ask about Clariss?”

“No.”

Caitlin glanced at Cisco. Clearly there had been a conversation while he was gone.

“You know what that means, don’t you?”

Barry sighed. “Yeah. I do.”

* * *

Black’s office was barely big enough for the five people facing her desk to stand side by side. Rico and Morillo came to attention. Clariss tried to hide a yawn. Dillon fidgeted. Hunter just waited.

It wasn’t quite seven in the morning. Black had been up for half the night and was determined to make sure that the causes of her discomfort shared some of it.

After watching the group for a moment, she gave the two Marines a nod and they stood at ease. “Doctor,” she said, “have you found any sign of the teleporter?”

“No, colonel,” Clariss answered. “She blew her tracking device when they tried to remove it.”

“So she’s dead?”

“Almost certainly.”

Black didn’t press him on ‘almost’. It didn’t matter. The teleporter was a wanted criminal with little knowledge of their operation. Dead or alive, she was one less thing to worry about.

That brought her back to the purpose of the morning’s meeting. She considered for a moment how much to explain. She knew she’d made the same mistake as Clariss: she’d underestimated the enemy. But she couldn’t admit, even to herself, how angry she was that Allen and her friends had found a weakness in her personal life to use against her.  

The bare facts then. Nothing more.

“Iris West visited Congressman Kenyon last night. She’s trying to gather evidence on this operation. Barry Allen and his friends are still digging and they need to be stopped before they do any real damage.”

“How?” Hunter asked.

“We finish what we started. We kill the Flash.”

Hunter’s eyes widened. That obviously hadn’t been the answer he’d expecting, but he didn’t look unhappy.

“Finally!” Dillon exclaimed.

“How?” Clariss asked.

“We have to make it clear that metahumans are dangerous and that one lone operator is not enough to protect a city,” Black explained. “So the Flash has to be killed in public by other metahumans.”

“Not STAR Labs, ma’am?” Morillo asked.

“Don’t try to go in there,” Hunter said. “That building is a maze. And it’s his home. He and his friends know it too well.”

Black nodded. “Choose the ground. Make him come to you.”

“We can do that,” Dillon said.

Morillo glanced at Rico. “We might need some backup, ma’am. To make sure we get the job done.”

“I’ll go, ma’am,” Rico said.

“Just make sure everyone sees who brings him down.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What about afterwards?” Hunter asked. “His team?”

Black gave him a careful look, wondering, not for the first time, what lay behind his obsessive desire to avenge himself on the Flash. It was a useful motivator, but not a reliable one. For the moment, however, their interests overlapped.

“No more kid’s games,” she said. “First Barry Allen. Then Iris West, Cisco Ramon, Caitlin Snow, Joe West and Crystal Frost. Terminate with extreme prejudice.”

* * *

“Are you nuts?”

Joe had reacted about as well as they’d expected. At least he’d let them finish the explanation before exploding. Barry faced it with Iris at his side. Caitlin and Cisco quietly retreated across the Cortex.

“Barry, Eiling is dangerous. Have you forgotten what happened with Snart?”

“No, Joe,” Barry responded. “I haven’t. But we’ve got to stop Black and he can do it.”

“So you just made a deal with the devil? Is he even going to help you?”

“He will,” Barry said. “If we get him what he needs.”

“And what’s that?”

“Proof that Colonel Black is connected with Dillon and Morillo,” Iris replied.

“And how were you going to do that?” Joe pressed.

“Arrest Clariss,” Caitlin said.

The words hung in the silence that followed. There was something in the way Caitlin had spoken that caught everyone’s attention.

“What for?” Joe asked; a genuine question, like this time he knew there’d be a good answer.

“Clariss’ name is all over the Wayland file,” Caitlin said. “But he posed as a fence to get close to Snart. He bought the jewellery the Rogues stole from Hatton Plaza. Receiving stolen goods?”

“It’d be a damn good start,” Joe said. “If we can prove it.”

“Wait a second.” Cisco nervously tapped a lollipop against his mouth. “Dillon and Morillo both work for Clariss too, right? Caitlin, how much did Clariss give Snart for the jewels?”

“Seventy thousand dollars,” Caitlin answered.

“So where’d he get it from?”

“Colonel Black?” Barry suggested.

Cisco shook his head. “I saw him with her. She would not just give him seventy grand. And where would she get it? I’m pretty sure conspiracies like that don’t work cash in hand.”

“So where?” Iris said.

“Twenty from the Thirty-Second Street bank,” Joe said. “Forty from the armoured car. Ten of his own.”

“He paid Snart with money his guys stole?” Barry exclaimed.

“Yes.” Caitlin nodded. “It’s almost clever.”

Cisco let out a laugh. “No it’s not, Caitlin. It’s really, really fucking dumb. The cash from the armoured car was marked!”

“Seriously?” Iris said.

Joe nodded. “Yeah. We’ve been looking for it since the robbery.”

“So how do we connect Snart to the money?” Iris asked. “We can’t ask him for a statement.”

“Maybe we don’t have to,” Caitlin said. “Snart has a number for Clariss. If you arrest Clariss, you should find the cell phone.”

“And how would we know about that from Snart’s end?”

“Say the CCPD had Snart under surveillance after the plaza robbery,” Cisco suggested. “Trying to find who his connections were. They can’t come forward without blowing their cover.”

Barry watched Joe think it over. He’d never been anything but an honest cop, and while Cisco’s idea wasn’t exactly a lie, it wasn’t the truth either.

“I’ll have to speak to the captain,” Joe said eventually. “And the DA. But we’ll still need the money. You think Snart’s just going to hand it over?”

“Only one way to find out,” Barry said.

* * *

Theo’s bar was as dim during the day as it was at night. Caitlin led the way down the steps with Barry behind her. His cap brim was low enough to keep people from getting a good look at his face, but not so obviously trying to conceal it. That was what they hoped anyway. He hadn’t been happy that she’d insisting on coming with him, which was fitting, especially since she thought this would work far better if she went alone. In the end, Cisco had broken the tie.

At least she’d been right about the daytime food menu. Barry picked a booth with a good view of the door and she went over to the bar. She kept her head up, her back straight and her eyes empty. She wondered what he was thinking, watching her doing this. He’d only caught the end of her act, he hadn’t seen her really trying to be Killer Frost.

Caitlin rested her hands on the bar and waited until she had Theo’s attention. “Remember me?” she said. The barman gave a faint nod. “Two beers and a plate of nachos.” Her voice dropped. “And tell Len Snart that Katie has a message for his sister.”

Theo’s eyes didn’t so much as flicker. He handed over the beers and went into the back to deal with the food order. Both bottles were ice cold by the time Caitlin got back to the table and handed one to Barry.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked.

“No. But how else were we going to find him?”

“I guess.”

They sipped their drinks. It took two minutes for Barry to start talking again.

“So… what’s with ‘Katie’?”

Caitlin rolled her eyes. “It’s just what Lisa calls me. Nobody else.”

“Right,” Barry said. He’d seen her get twitchy if anybody called her ‘Cait’ too often.

The other bartender slid the nachos onto the table. Caitlin glanced at the bar, where Theo was dealing with another customer and keeping his back to them. She wondered if they’d have to try the whole menu before Snart showed up.

The food wasn’t bad. It’d been a lifetime since she’d been alone with Barry. Normally, when they were in public, he had to restrain himself from devouring everything in front of him. It was oddly comforting to see that hadn’t changed. He was also watching her, she realised, with a careful, scientific gaze that she’d never tell him reminded her of Doctor Wells.

“You never said what it was like working with them,” he said.

“Complicated.”

She expected him to apologise, and was ready to shoot it down, but he didn’t. Instead she got, “You know, if you asked him, Joe would make you an appointment with Doctor Carmichael. She sometimes helps undercover cops when they come in.”

Caitlin had an unfortunate amount of experience with counselling. Enough to know that despite all her doubts, it did work.

“Thank you. I’ll… look into it.”

Barry smiled. “I’m the one who should be saying thank you.”

“For what?”

“For everything,” Barry said. “Everything you and Iris and Cisco did for me.”

“You’d do the same for us. You have.”

“That’s what Iris said.”

“She’s right.”

Barry shrugged. “Caitlin… I’d be dead if it weren’t for you.”

Caitlin stared at the table. She still tried very hard not to think about that day, and how close Barry had come to really bleeding out.

“You twisted,” she said quietly. “The bullet missed your major organs.”

“And you froze the wound closed. I wouldn’t be sitting here if you hadn’t.”

She didn’t know what to say. She’d been desperate, and her drastic solution would have killed anyone without Barry’s healing abilities. But it had bought her just enough time for her to repair the damage and keep her friend alive. Afterwards, they were all so exhausted and frightened nobody had thought much about it. That it shouldn’t have been possible hadn’t occurred to her until now.

“You’re welcome, Barry,” she said.

Another bottle thumped onto the table. Barry looked up and tensed.

“Am I interrupting?” Snart asked.

They hadn’t seen or heard him come in. He sat down next to her without an invitation and grabbed a few of the remaining nachos.

“You wanted to see me?”

“We were expecting Lisa,” Caitlin said.

“I could have sent Mick. How are you, _Barry_?”

“Never been better,” Barry said.

Snart’s smile flickered. Caitlin could see the curiosity simmering behind the look directed at Barry, but knew that Snart would never admit it. Barry held the gaze. After five seconds, she gave them both an out.

“Snart, do you still have the money you were paid for the Hatton Plaza jewels?”

“Why?”

“We think it’s the same money stolen by Roscoe Dillon and Jared Morillo,” Barry said. “They gave it to Clariss and Clariss passed it on to you.”

Snart’s expression went flat. “The cash is marked.”

“Yeah.”

The narrowing of Snart’s eyes was as good as a curse. It was a few seconds before he said, “Why do you care?”

“If the police find it in your possession,” Caitlin explained, “that will connect Clariss to the robberies. They can arrest him and bring down the operation he works for.”

“It’ll cost me seventy thousand dollars.”

“You know you won’t be able to get rid of the cash,” Barry said. “Every cop in the state is on the lookout for it. All we need is the money, and evidence that you had it. Nothing else.”

“The club where we were staying,” Caitlin suggested. “Leave the money and some… personal items there. Make it look like you left in a hurry.”

Snart smiled. “You thought about this. Lisa would be proud.”

“There is one other thing,” Caitlin said. “We’ll need the number you called Clariss on.”

Snart stiffened. “I’m no snitch.”

“We won’t say it came from you,” Barry told him. “A surveillance officer saw you make the call.”

“So I’m just careless.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Barry said. “You already know you’re going to help us. Otherwise you’ll be looking over your shoulder for Clariss as well as the CCPD. And you know that the people he works for won’t just arrest you. Or the rest of your crew.”

“I’ll think about it,” Snart said.

Barry was about to speak again when there was a chime from Caitlin’s handbag. She pulled out her cell and was surprised to see Detective Frost’s number. She answered, but wasn’t given time to speak.

“Caitlin, is he there?”

She guessed who she meant. “Yeah.”

“Dillon and Morillo just attacked the Wells Fargo on Forty-Fifth and Hamilton. They’ve taken hostages.”

“Oh, no.”

“Sounds like a job for the Flash,” Snart remarked.

Caitlin glanced around. Nobody in the bar was paying them any attention. “We’ll be there as soon as we can,” she said, and hung up.

She threw some money onto the table and strode towards the door. Barry caught up with her. Behind them, she heard Snart call, “Another beer, Theo. And put on the local news.”

“Hope he enjoys the show,” Barry muttered. “Hang on.”

The bar door slammed behind them and Caitlin bit down on a shriek as the lightning swept her away.

* * *

Barry appeared in the Cortex, dropped off his passenger and changed into his suit before Caitlin had a chance to take her first hesitant step towards the console.

“You alright?” Cisco asked.

“Sure. Out of practice.”

“You guys get the call?” Barry said.

Cisco nodded. “Joe already took off.”

“What happened?”

“Dillon and Morillo got into the bank twenty minutes ago,” Iris explained. “Morillo threw most of the day staff and customers out at gunpoint but Dillon grabbed some bankers. Crystal’s there now, sealing off the area.”

Barry nodded. “Okay. I’ll get down there.”

“Wait!” Cisco protested. “Do you not see the big honkin' sign saying ‘This is a trap’?”

“He’s right, Barry,” Iris agreed. “These guys used to hit and run. Now they’re camping out and waiting for you.”

“There’s two of them,” Cisco said. “They’ve got the vertigo gun. You need backup.”

“Cisco,” Caitlin hissed.

Cisco pressed ahead regardless. Barry hadn’t seen what those two could do. Neither had Caitlin or Iris. “I’ll grab the white noise generator from my lab. We’ll use that on Morillo’s gun. Then you can take out the Top.”

“If you’re doing that, I’m driving,” Caitlin said.

“You are not leaving me here,” Iris said.

Cisco didn’t try to argue. He didn’t want to. He kept his eyes on Barry, who was looking helplessly back and forth between three identically determined expressions.

“Okay,” he muttered. “Call me when you get there.”

“Right,” Iris said. “Grab what you need. Van in five.”

Cisco bolted for his lab. He found his computer and every piece of sonic technology he had to hand and shoved it into a single heavy bag. The weight turned the run to the parking lot into a wobbly jog, but he made it. The van was back in mobile command centre mode, which Iris was checking as he arrived. He took one of the chairs and Iris strapped herself into the other, yelling for Caitlin to go.

The bouncy drive through the slippery streets took fifteen minutes. Enough time to Cisco to reset the interface between the van’s computers and the ones in the Cortex, giving him access to Barry’s com system, suit outputs and the city’s traffic cameras. Then he got to work on the infrasound tech. He’d mostly abandoned his idea of cancelling out the waves from the gun and was trying to figure out how to use a focussed sonic burst to cause the weapon to feedback on itself. Of course, such a countermeasure would have to be delivered at point blank range, but that what they kept Barry around for.

The van lurched to a stop. “We’re here,” Caitlin announced.

Cisco checked the cameras. The entrance of the Wells Fargo building faced a wide junction, and the cops had learned their lesson and set up their barricades a block down the three roads that led off from it, out of range of Morillo’s gun. They’d also brought along plenty of riot gear in case Dillon took the offensive. With the other buildings evacuated and the civilians kept behind a second line two more blocks up, the whole area was as empty as Mainstreet at High Noon.

Caitlin pulled the rear door open and climbed into the back. Cisco stared at her for a moment, suddenly realising she was wearing her Killer Frost suit. But before he could say anything, he noticed Joe and Crystal on the sidewalk outside.

“You picked a hell of a time for a field trip,” Joe said. “Where’s the Flash?”

“On the bench,” Barry said through the radio. “What’s going on?”

“We haven’t heard anything from inside,” Crystal said. “It’s like they’re waiting for something.”

“Yeah,” Barry said. “Me.”

Cisco made one last check of his gear. He looked at the other two. They nodded.

“Alright, Flash. You’re up.”

The radio crackled. Cisco didn’t even have to count to ten before the lightning streaked past the van, straight through the police line and stopped in the centre of the junction.

“Dillon! Morillo!” Barry called, zipping from spot to spot. “You want the Flash? I’m here! Now let everybody else leave.”

Dillon’s tornado burst through the door. Barry flickered back, but the vortex stabilised into a human form. He was still wearing light body armour, but wasn’t bothering with the hood anymore.

“You’re the Flash, huh? Just because you’re the city’s pet superhero doesn’t mean everything’s about you.”

“Then what do you want, Dillon?”

Cisco kept his eyes on the screens, wondering where Morillo was hiding. He was probably still inside with the hostages. Probably.

“We just want money, Flash,” Dillon replied. “We’ve got twenty bankers in there. Each one transfers twenty thousand dollars to us, and we let them go. It doesn’t even have to be their money. They should be used to robbing their clients by now.”

Barry stopped in front of him. “That’s not going to happen.”

The van shifted slightly. Cisco glanced up. Caitlin was leaning over the other set of screens, but Iris wasn’t. She was couched at the back of the van, looking out of the doors. Cisco followed her gaze.

“Are you sure, Flash?” Dillon asked.

Four blocks behind the van, beyond the gathering crowd of journalists and rubberneckers, there was another tall, shiny financial building. It was one of the first of the ultra-modern, sleek blocks built on the upper edge of the old business district. Iris was peering up at it, staring hard at the line of its roof, and Cisco realised what she’d seen. Anyone up there would have a view down the street, straight as an arrow, towards the doorway where Dillon had distracted Barry enough that he was now standing almost still.

Cisco scrambled for the coms, but Iris beat him to it. “Flash, move!”

The sound hit them a second later. That awful flat boom of a heavy gunshot. The asphalt in the junction was torn apart, two feet to the left of where Barry was now standing.

“Sniper!” Joe yelled, waving his arm. “Get down!”

The echoes faded like distant thunder, and then the junction exploded into noise and movement.

Barry charged straight at Dillon, but a burst of automatic gunfire roared out of the Wells Fargo doorway and forced him to turn. This bought Dillon enough time to spin up and whirl in front of the entrance. Barry zig-zagged away, dodging a rain of high-speed ball bearings that shattered the windows around him and clattered against the wall of riot shields.

But as soon as he spotted a gap in the attacks, Barry wheeled around and dived for the Top. The spinning shape danced to one side, catching Barry on the edge of the funnel and hurling him sideways through the air. He hit the ground in the middle of the road and skidded along on his back.

Then Morillo burst through the wreckage his partner had left, aiming the vertigo gun on his left side while an assault rifle hung loose on his right. Cisco yelled something incoherent into the microphone as the weapon fired. But Barry was gone again, ducking both the infrasound blast and the clatter of real bullets as he ran back up the street.

“Any ideas?” he called through the radio.

“Try splitting them up,” Caitlin suggested.

“Hold your fire!” Joe shouted. The cops didn’t want to risk hitting Barry, and they still had no idea where the hostages were being held; a bullet could go straight through the building’s wall and hurt one of them.

“Okay,” Barry said, still trying to futility manoeuvre Morillo into emerging from cover enough for the cops to handle. “Which one?”

“Morillo’s a Marine,” Cisco said. “Dillon’s not. He might go after you.”

“Right, here goes.”

The lightning curved around and then Barry shot back down the street towards the Top. This time, he side-stepped at the last second and ran around him, encircling the dark vortex in one of his own. Dillon lurched from side to side, but Barry kept out of reach. Morillo levelled his gun but didn’t fire in case he hit his partner.

The battle of the whirlwinds lasted only a few seconds before the Top lost patience. He surged straight forward, out into the open junction with the lightning still crackling around him. Then Barry dropped back, halting for just long enough for Dillon to focus on him before dashing through one of the broken windows of the office block on the opposite side of the road. The Top screamed off in pursuit.

“Flash!” Iris shouted.

There was a tearing noise over the radio link. “Well,” Barry hissed. “I pissed him off. Where’s Morillo?”

“Hunkered down to the right of the Wells Fargo doorway,” Iris told him.

“Okay… hang on…”

There was another, louder crash. Then everything went quiet for just a second before Barry blasted out of the ruined windows opposite Morillo.

But somehow – maybe it was that damned helmet – the Marine had seen him coming. The vertigo gun was already aimed and Cisco could just see the flicker on the cameras as it swept over Barry.

The effect was instant. Barry missed Morillo hit the side of the Wells Fargo building. He kept going, bouncing off and running almost sideways. Then he slammed into the far side of the junction and spun around again.

All that kept Barry alive was that Morillo had no idea where to aim next. That would buy him a couple of seconds at most. Cisco grabbed the bag from under the desk and jumped out of the van.

“What the hell are you doing?” Caitlin yelled.

“He’s gonna kill him!”

The cops were too busy watching the junction to pay attention to him. Joe turned as Caitlin and Iris shouted again, but by that time he was passed them. He froze as Morillo sent a wild spray of bullets towards the cordon, causing everyone else to duck down. But then Barry appeared, an almost comical super-speed stumble through the junction. Morillo fired again and one of the bullets must have clipped Barry. He nearly fell, but managed a burst of speed to bring him down behind an abandoned car.

Cisco slid over the hood of one of the cars making up the barricade. He barely kept his feet, but managed to find enough grip to run. Then he saw Morillo take aim. He was too far and stressed for a boom, but he managed a desperate high-energy shriek that had Morillo camp his hands to either side of the helmet and bought Cisco enough time to dive for cover beside Barry.

Barry’s eyes were flickering all over the place, trying to follow fixed points that seemed constantly in motion. Cisco had never taken the time to wonder how Barry kept his balance and situation awareness at super-speed, but now it occurred to him that this might be making the gun’s effects worse. The Flash might be getting vertigo at a hundred times human speed.

“Cisco?” Barry whispered. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“Can’t be that bad,” Cisco hissed through gritted teeth, trying desperately to focus on the bag not the situation.

“Everything’s… everywhere…” Barry muttered. 

“Just breath, okay? Just breath.”

Barry squeezed his eyes shut. Cisco took a glance around the edge of the car. No sign of Morillo. Then a bullet cracked over his head.

“Oh my god.”

“Is he coming?” Barry asked.

Cisco didn’t risk another glance. Morillo couldn’t go for them directly, the cops would keep him down. But it was only a matter of time before the found the angle he needed, and he was still shooting at the police lines. Unfortunately, while the bag Cisco brought with him contained a few things to help minimise the effects of the vertigo gun, there was nothing he could use to cure a dizzy speedster. Or make either of them immune to an assault rifle.

Unless…

The idea was so crazy that if they hadn’t been pinned down and utterly alone, he wouldn’t even have contemplated it. But they were and he did, knowing they probably had thirty seconds at most before Morillo got his shot lined up.

“Okay, Barry. This might feel a little weird.”

He pulled the suit’s hood back and splayed his fingers, resting them gently against Barry’s skull around his ears. He closed his own eyes, trying to block out the sound of the street, and the crowd, and the gun battle, and the distant howl of wind. He focussed entirely on the sound and feel of Barry’s body.

It was different to anything he’d ever felt before. Everybody else pulsed; layer upon layer of beats, some fast and firm, some longer and slower. Barry hummed. Cisco could actually feel the energy inside him; he could almost hear the distant song of its source. But that wasn’t what he needed right now. Right now he needed to focus on a specific vibration, almost directly beneath his fingers, near the hiss of neurones: the turmoil that the infrasound was causing in Barry’s inner ear.

He was expecting the sound of a storm, but it wasn’t that bad; he could feel the fluid churning, almost like a washing machine gone out of control. He zeroed in on that, tuning out the rest of the ambient noise. With all of that gone, he could sense the shape of the waves, but they were hard to get a grip on. They slipped back and forth, growing and shrinking was they met and rebounded.

Then he realised that it didn’t matter. He didn’t need to cancel them out, to play them at their own game. He could make vibrations, and if he could make them then he could take them away. He grabbed hold of the waves, seeing them for a moment in his mind as three-dimensional arcing shapes, and pulled the energy from them until they were completely flat and gone.

He opened his eyes. Barry opened his. They focussed.

“How did you…?”

Before Barry could even finish the question, there was another crash. The Top exploded through one of the office block’s side doors and crashed straight into the police line.

“Stop him,” Cisco said. “I got this.”

“You sure?”

In spite of the ice-cold fear, Cisco nodded. “Yeah. Go.”

Barry grinned. “Kick his ass, _Vibe_.”

Barry launched himself up the street towards Dillon. Cisco saw Morillo pop out of cover and aim the vertigo gun again.

Cisco sprang to his feet and hurled a boom hard enough to knock the Marine off balance. “Hey, you son of a bitch, remember me?”

Morillo didn’t move. The masked face turned towards Cisco and stayed there, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His confusion only lasted a few seconds before the weapon swung around, but gave Cisco enough time to close the distance and reach out with his powers just as Morillo pulled the trigger.

He didn’t feel anything. He didn’t see anything either. There was no ripple in the air, nothing. The ground stayed firm under him. Morillo pulled the trigger twice more, and nothing continued to happen.

It was only then that Cisco realised that he couldn’t actually hear the sound of the gun trying to fire, or the fight behind him, or anything outside his own body. It was like his ears were blocked. His breathing and his heartbeat seemed ridiculously loud.

Morillo tilted his head to one side and tapped the helmet over one ear, like was trying to shake some water out of it.

Cisco let out a soundless, astonished laugh. He’d been aiming for the infrasound from the gun, but had apparently switched off the sound for the whole block.

A rush of movement snapped him out of it. Morillo let the vertigo gun fall to his side and grabbed the stock of his rifle. Cisco threw his arm out desperately as the gun came up.

Morillo braced himself for the boom, but nothing hit him. Cisco stared at his hand, and realised as Morillo took aim that the sound suppression worked just as well on his booms as it did on everything else.

He didn’t hear the shot. Time seemed to stop and he watched, uncomprehending, as Morillo crumpled into a heap on the sidewalk. He stared at the other man for a moment, deafened by his own breathing, wondering how he was still alive.

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder, and Cisco jumped out a foot in the air. It was Joe. He kept his pistol aimed at Dillon and then gestured to his ears, mouthing something at Cisco.

Cisco did his best to mouth an affirmative. He tried to find a way around the adrenaline and focus on whatever he’d done to the sound. A switch flicked inside him and everything came rushing back, drowning out his hammering heart and hyperventilation.

“You okay?” Joe asked.

“Yeah,” Cisco gasped. “Thank you.”

Joe grinned. “That’s what partners are for. Now don’t ever do anything that stupid again.”

* * *

Caitlin fought down the urge to run after Cisco. She told herself coldly, logically, that another person was just another target and that if Cisco couldn’t help Barry there was almost certainly nothing she could do. It didn’t stop her returning Iris’ iron grip on her hand just as tightly.

Then Dillon ripped out of the building and smashed into the barricade. The officers manning it were knocked back a step, and Dillon took advantage, driving straight for a weak point in the line of cars and riot shields. One officer was thrown through the air and landed next to Crystal Frost, who was yelling into a bullhorn to hold the line. Caitlin sprinted towards the man, but before she could reach him the barrier gave way and Dillon whirled through it.

Three more officers crashed to the ground around him, and he headed straight for Crystal. Caitlin wasn’t conscious of making a decision. She just fired a blast of icy air into the vortex, hard enough to push it off course and as Crystal dived for the safety of the reformed line.

Iris grabbed Caitlin’s hand and helped pull the injured officer out of the way. Dillon hurtled towards the ones on the ground, but then Barry flashed in between them, scooping up the downed cops and pulling them away before the Top could do them any more harm.

“Iris, I need some water!” Caitlin called.

Iris grabbed a bottle from inside one of the cruisers. “Will this do?”

“Yeah.”

She had to concentrate. Had to time it just right. She pulled the top off the water bottle and swept her right hand in an arc, throwing the droplets through the field projected by the conductor on her left arm. The water froze in mid-air and the cloud of ice shards smashed into Dillon from behind. But he was spinning much too fast, fast enough to shatter the ice into razor-edged crystals that were sent straight back, biting into Caitlin’s skin as she threw a hand up to protect her face. 

This had only bought the police a few seconds to regroup, trying to close Dillon in or funnel him back towards the barricade. Barry was flickering around the Top, trying to keep between him and the line protecting the civilians. Then he darted forward, but rather than hitting the whirlwind from the front, Barry went past it, trying to strike a glancing blow at the side. He made contact and for an instant the black blur was joined by a patch of red as it spun Barry around and sent him crashing against the side of a police cruiser.

“Are you alright?” Caitlin asked.  

“Yeah,” Barry gasped. “He’s spinning… really fast. If I had an opening… just a second…”

“Where’s a vertigo gun when you really need it?” Iris growled.

They had to knock the Top off balance. And maybe there was a way to do that. Caitlin looked down at her knees. Her pants were damp where she’d been kneeling next to the cop. There was still the faintest trace of water on the road from last night’s storm.

“I have a plan,” she said. “I need you to bring him towards me and then turn and hit him when I say.”

Barry hesitated for a second, and then nodded. “Okay. Just say when.”

“Iris, get the cops clear. In case this doesn’t work.”

Iris squeezed both their arms. “It’ll work.”

Iris got up and ran towards the cover of the police, who were using their riot shields in a style that would have done credit to a Greek phalanx as they held off the Top’s onslaughts. They were split into small groups, and Dillon was doing his best to keep them apart. But it seemed like whenever the Top attacked one group, another would distract him, and so he ended up ricocheting around he was on the world’s largest pinball table.

Crystal was in the heart of the largest force, calling out warnings through her bullhorn, keeping everyone under control and probably hoping Dillon would run out of energy before they did. Iris was able to reach her, and then Crystal shouted some more orders.

“Everybody fall back! Form up on the second line!”

The clusters started retreating, trying to coalesce. Dillon renewed his onslaught, his attention focussed on the cops for long enough or Caitlin to slip across the street, picking her spot carefully so it would look like she was trying to get back to the van while also obscuring the alley behind her that would give Barry plenty of space to turn around.

Barry was back on his feet, braced against the car and waiting. Caitlin gave him a nod and he launched forward, looping around the Top three times before heading straight for Caitlin as Dillon gave chase. Caitlin felt thump of air as he went by and then focussed on the pitch-black whirlwind about to swallow her.

She threw her arms out, aiming not at Dillon’s body this time, but at the asphalt under his feet.

“Now!”

The road surface froze. Whatever friction the Top had was cut to zero. The vortex lurched sideways, almost going horizontal side as it started to break up. For an instant, Caitlin could see inside, see Dillon’s body spinning, and see the astonishment on his face.

Then Barry blasted past her and hit the Top hard enough to lift him off the ground. He did a few last, muddled pirouettes in the air, then crashed down on his face and was still.

Caitlin stood frozen for a second and then, almost against her will, bent over and pressed her fingers against Dillon’s neck. She let out a breath and gave Barry a nod. Barry gave her a bright smile back, and then had to catch Iris as she threw her arms around his neck. It only lasted a second before Crystal’s appearance reminded them they were under the eyes of the CCPD. They jumped apart and Caitlin pretended she didn’t notice the look of regret on Barry’s face before it started to blur.  

“Nice right hook… Flash,” Iris said.

“I had a good teacher,” Barry replied.

Caitlin straightened and pointed at his other side. “Is that arm broken?”

Barry gave her an off-balance shrug. “Umm… I’ll let you know when the feeling comes back.”

“Caitlin!”

She forgot all about Barry’s arm and spun around. Cisco and Joe were picking their way through the wreckage of the barricade. Cisco looked battered but uninjured, and didn’t seem to need Joe’s help to walk. She didn’t know which she wanted to do more: hug him or hit him. Indecision and a desire not to do something she’d regret when the adrenaline wore off rooted her to the spot.

“We got Morillo,” Cisco said.

Caitlin nodded. “We got Dillon. He needs a doctor.”

“So does Morillo,” Cisco said. “Joe shot him. See how he likes it.”

Caitlin’s eyes went wide.

“Body armour,” Joe said.

Caitlin relaxed. “Oh. Right.”

“The hostages are okay.”

“That’s good,” she said faintly.

She was having a hard time focussing. Her brain was stuck in too high a gear. But as the excitement faded, something started nagging at her. Something from before the battle that felt like it had lasted an hour, where she’d used her powers in public for the first time, and in front of half the CCPD. She was suddenly horribly conscious of the glance she got from the officer helping Crystal move Dillon onto a gurney and handcuff him in place.

Joe’s radio crackled. “Detective West, this is Officer Michaels. I’ve been trying to get through to you. We’re on the roof.”

Her head jerked up. So did Barry’s. They’d all forgotten about the sniper.

“Anybody up there?” Joe asked.

“Nobody, detective. But we found a shell casing. I think it’s a fifty-cal.”

Joe looked up at Barry, his expression hardening. “Check everything,” he told the radio.

“A bigger gun,” Iris whispered. “Something Eiling said. That’s how I…”

Barry nodded. Even through the distortion, they heard the fondness as he said, “Thank you, Iris.”

“You’d better go, dude,” Cisco said.

“Okay,” Barry said. “I’ll meet you later. Guys… we’ve got to end this.”

A strobe of light, and he was gone. Caitlin looked at Cisco, then at Iris, Joe and Crystal. She felt scared, shaken and, strangely, certain. The others looked the same.

“He’s right,” she said. “This has to stop.”

“Yeah,” Cisco agreed.

“You’re sure about this?” Joe asked. “Black’s not a bank robber. She’s a Marine.”

“We know, dad,” Iris said. “But if she wants a fight, we’ll give her one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written several months before the recent (at time of posting) shootings of US police officers. However, I am aware that the resemblances between these events and plot elements of this story could potentially be upsetting to some readers. If they were, I can only apologise.


	20. The Point of No Return

“This dramatic situation ended when the Flash arrived on the scene, sparking a brief firefight between the robbers and CCPD. The Flash assisted the police in incapacitating the two men before anyone was seriously hurt, though we understand that both suspects are being treated for injuries sustained during their resistance. All of the hostages were rescued unharmed.

“The identities of the two suspects have not been released, but we believe that they are the same pair wanted for two more violent robberies in the last month: the Thirty-Second Street Bank, and an armoured car on Westchester Avenue. Stay tuned for further updates.”

Black turned off the screen and turned her attention to Clariss and Hunter.

“You can’t blame us for this,” Clariss protested. “We gave them everything they needed.”

“Save it, doctor,” Black said. “It was Morillo’s plan. If he or Dillon fucked up, then it’s on them. I need to know if they can give the police any hard evidence of this project.”

“No,” Clariss replied. “The serum will be out of Dillon’s bloodstream before anyone can test for it. You remember the trials, colonel? It completely breaks down.”

“What about the gun and his equipment?”

“Bought or stolen,” Hunter said. “I made sure they couldn’t be traced back here.”

There was a rap on the door. “What is it?” Black shouted.

“Ma’am, the lookouts have seen… something approaching the base. It’s moving fast.”

“It’s him!” Hunter exclaimed.

“It’s not him,” Black snapped. “He’s not that stupid. We’ll come.”

She joined Major Holland outside and they headed for the perimeter. Clariss and Hunter followed with obvious reluctance. On the way, a lieutenant joined them with a tablet, showing what the cameras were seeing. Black stopped to get a good look.

The screen displayed an infra-red view of a human figure running across the Badlands towards them. It was moving fast, but in fits and starts. It would cruise at what she guessed to be over a hundred miles an hour for a few seconds and then drop back to twenty or thirty, then accelerate again. The irregular motion bought them enough reach the front gate as the guards readied their weapons.

The black-clad figure shot over the rise and around the front of the base. Holland barked a hold order it turned towards the front gate, speed falling all the time. It was far too small to be the Flash and the suit became more recognisable as it slowed.

Rico stopped twenty yards from the gate guards and pulled off the helmet so everyone could see her. “Staff Sergeant Rico reporting!” she shouted.

Even at this distance, Black could see her face was blotched and she was having trouble keeping her feet. “Get a corpsman!” she ordered. “Doctor, with me.”

She ran towards Rico, who came to attention despite her visible exhaustion. Her face was flushed red, slick with sweat and her breath was coming in gasps.

“At ease, staff sergeant,” Black said. “What happened?”

“The fucker… moved, ma’am,” Rico said, trying to control her breathing. “Round was on its… way and he fucking disappeared. I pulled out ahead… of the cops.”

“You just left Morillo?” Clariss exclaimed.

“Those were my orders, doctor,” Black said. “Rico, did you run back here?”

“Yes… ma’am.”

“Christ,” Clariss exclaimed. “No wonder she’s exhausted.”

As he leaned over Rico, doing an improvised physical, Hunter said, “Colonel, the suit can physically accelerate her but this was the reason we haven’t yet tested it over long distances. It compresses all the physical strain of a forty-mile endurance run into ten minutes.”

“Will she be alright?” Black asked.

“I’m not falling over like… fucking Pheidippides… ma’am,” Rico responded.

One of the corpsman familiar with the project arrived. He glanced at Clariss and then did his own visual examination of Rico, who didn’t enjoy the attention.

“You’re probably just hypoglycaemic,” Clariss said. “I need to run some tests. You’re lucky you’re a Marine. If you’d been a soldier, this probably would have killed you.”

He shared a laugh with Hunter. Rico didn’t.

“Report to the sickbay, staff sergeant,” Black ordered.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Clariss took a step towards her. Rico just shoved her helmet into his hands. “Lead off, doc.”

“Follow me,” the corpsman said.

Black went with them as far as the gate, where she turned to Major Holland. “I want a report on the project by oh-nine-hundred tomorrow. I’m going to see the Mantle team myself. They need a kick in the ass.”

“Ma’am, is the Flash coming?”

“He’s not going to stop,” Black said. “Not till we stop him.”

* * *

The police vans took advantage of the early rush to draw up unobtrusively opposite the entrances to the abandoned club at eight in the morning. The SWAT team emerged first, streaming across the road to secure both entrances. On point were a pair of specially equipped men holding riot shields designed to handle extreme heat or cold.

The squads communicated in clicks over the radio, lining up, taking positions and giving the go command.

The locked doors buckled and then splintered inwards under the force of the battering rams. The SWAT officers charged inside, bellowing orders to each other and the suspects they expected to find. Crystal went in side by side with Joe, every step expecting to hear the sound of it all going wrong: the scream of Snart’s gun or the blast of Rory’s.

But she didn’t hear any of that. She and Joe waited next to the entrance for the controlled chaos to subside. It took a few minutes before the sergeant jogged up, lifted his visor and made his report.

“Nobody’s home, detective. If the Rogues were here, we missed them.”

“Damn,” Joe growled.

Crystal didn’t trust herself to fake disappointment. “They’re not going to come back after this. See what you can find.”

Another officer approached, holding some diagrams. “There’s a kind of office up those stairs. I found these. I think that’s the Barker Avenue casino.”

Crystal turned her head to see the scribbled arrows for an entry and exit plan and what she presumed were times for crossing the casino floor. She recognised Snart’s writing. She wondered if this was a real job he’d been considering, or one he’d discarded. Or maybe just what he did for fun.

“Okay,” Joe said. “Get the CSIs in here and keep looking.”

The crime scene techs fanned out in the wake of the SWAT team. They hadn’t been at work very long before the most junior member was sent down to give an update. Crystal guessed the CSIs were trying to soften the bad mood they thought Joe would be in after Snart slipped through his grasp.

“There’s a converted kitchen upstairs, Detective West. Food still on the table. They must have left in a hurry, but they didn’t leave anything substantial. Hair and fibres, though. We found a toothbrush in the bathroom. And a lot of hair products. Beds in two of the offices. No clothing so far.”

It was another hour before they got anything more substantial. The lead CSI was cautiously optimistic about proving that Snart’s gang had been staying at the club but refused to speculate on where they might be now. Crystal felt a little bad about the questions they asked, they both knew that any trail would be false.

What was more worrying as the time dragged on was the absence of the thing they’d been promised would be there. Barry had been quite specific as to where they were going to find the real prize, but none of the CSIs seemed to be looking in the right place. Their attention was still focussed on the upper floors, cataloguing and photographing.

Crystal gave Joe an anxious stare, silently asking if they were going to have to ‘find’ it themselves. Then, on the other side of the bar, one of the SWATs carelessly thumped a foot against the wooden panelling. He straightened up and then moved to his left, cautiously kicking at one section at a time.

“Hey sarge! Sarge! I think there’s a false panel here!”

A gentler tap confirmed that the section of the bar was indeed hollow. The bomb techs moved in. Everybody knew Mick Rory’s fondness for incendiary devices, and nobody wanted to put themselves or anyone else on the memorial wall to save a few minutes. It ended up being ten, the techs making every check they could think of before they were sure the panel wasn’t booby-trapped.

Crystal and Joe stood their ground on the far side of the bar and everybody else backed up, getting ready to shield themselves in case something had been missed.

The door was yanked open, and a second passed before anybody breathed again. There was nothing in the compartment but a bag. Crystal’s nails dug into her palm, hoping desperately that if the Rogues were being dishonest, it was nothing worse than the bag being empty.

The sound of the zipper being pulled back was heard across the room.

“Oh my god…”

“What is it?” Joe called.

“Detective, you’d better come look at this… there’s got to be a hundred thousand dollars in here.”

Crystal finally started to relax. But her heart rate didn’t drop back to normal until they were returning to the station and she and Joe went to Captain Singh’s office to report.

“Close the door behind you,” the captain said. “Sit down. Well?”

Joe looked at Crystal. “It’s your case.”

Crystal took a long breath. Her heartbeat was climbing again.

“Captain, I’m ready to make a report on the Allen case.”

“What’s this got to do with that?”

“Everything,” Crystal answered. “Captain… with your permission, I’m going to make two reports. One of them is going to go on the record. The other one is the whole truth.”

Singh didn’t say anything.

“To start with, captain… I know Barry Allen is alive. I know that you and Joe and Iris and his friends at STAR Labs know it too. He’s still in hiding. But we can close this case and bring him back.”

“So what’s the case?”

“The case, for the record, is that a DARPA consultant called Doctor Edward Clariss thought he could make some money selling high-tech weapons. He stole the infrasound gun and gave it to Jared Morillo to use as a demonstrator for any buyers he found. But that wasn’t enough. He wanted the guns used by the Snarts and Mick Rory so he set himself up as a fence and, to gain Snart’s trust, he paid seventy thousand dollars for the Hatton Plaza jewels with cash stolen by Dillon and Morillo. We just got confirmation from the lab that the markings matched.

“The Flash found out about this from watching Snart’s gang, and he asked the team at STAR Labs to look into it. They brought in Barry Allen. There’s no proof, but I think that when Clariss found out, he hired someone to shoot Barry to scare the others away. The next part you know, don’t you, captain? The Rogues were infiltrated by Doctor Snow. She found the proof that Clariss was the gang’s new middle man and was even able to get the number they used to contact him. It’s just a shame we had to extract her early and missed the Rogues in the sweep. But we have the cash, and with a warrant we can prove all the connections to Doctor Clariss.”

Singh nodded slowly. “Okay, Detective Frost. Figure out how we can sell that to a judge. But first, you and Detective West are going to tell me the truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God.”

* * *

There were a couple of ways into the precinct that very few people knew about. Barry had found almost all of them in last two years, which was handy if you had to make a quick exit while followed by a conspicuous light show. Just after sunrise the next morning he used one of them to get into the precinct basement, where he found Cisco in what had been a disused office last time he’d been down there.

“This was where you were working while I was gone?” Barry asked.

“Could have been worse,” Cisco said, sipping his coffee. The fact that his friend had learned to tolerate the cop-shop sludge was almost as alarming as where they’d sent him.

“How?”

“Next to the captain’s office?”

“I guess.”

Cisco took another gulp and turned on the lab computer. Barry helped him through the awkward records system, trying not to think about the big open space upstairs that had been his home away from home before STAR Labs. It took them about twenty minutes to collect all the evidence they needed and ship it onto a flash drive.

Barry reached for the port and hesitated, doubts crowding over him. “Cisco… do you think I’m doing the right thing? Eiling tortured Stein. He killed Bette. He did god knows what to Grodd.”

“Yeah,” Cisco said quietly. “And Black had someone shoot you. She let Professor Zoom out. Dillon put two cops in the hospital and murdered the guy driving that armoured car. The Racer would have shot Iris. Clariss put a bomb in Shawna.”

“They tortured you,” Barry added.

Was there a right thing? Or was there just doing what you had to do? Eiling and Black both used that as a justification. Their orders, their duty. Barry didn’t have that excuse. For good or ill, it was his choice to make.

“You know I’ve been trying to see it, right?” Cisco went on. “Something. Anything. But I can’t.”

“That’s okay,” Barry replied. “It’s on me.”

Cisco looked up at him. “I don’t trust Eiling. But I trust you.”

Barry pulled the drive out. “Thanks, Cisco. I’ll see you at the lab.”

“Good luck, man.”

He held the drive tightly and ran, crossing the city through the morning twilight on a route that would hide where he came from or where he was going. He arrived at Eiling’s block and headed for the balcony like before. He wasn’t surprised to find Eiling already in his office.

The man didn’t even look up from his CCPN early edition as Barry came in. He was drinking coffee too, out of a mug bearing emblem of the 1st Calvary Division.

“To what do I owe the honour?” he asked.

Barry put the drive down on the desk. Eiling picked it up and gave it his least impressed look.

“What’s this?”

“Everything the cops have that connects Black’s operation to Dillon and Morillo,” Barry said. “And her biochemist’s extracurricular activities spying on Snart’s gang. Only they don’t know that’s what it does.”

“So how did I get this?” Eiling asked.

Barry shrugged. “I don’t know, general. Black ops are your department, not mine.”

“Then suppose it isn’t what you say it is?”

“You really think that?” Barry asked. “You said it yourself. I’m a bad liar.” 

Eiling nodded and went back to looking at the drive. His gaze was more intense now, as though he was trying to read its secrets on his own.

“What’s the price, Mr Allen?”

“A message,” Barry said. “Tell your friends in Washington to stay out of my city.”

He took a petty satisfaction on scattering Eiling’s paperwork as he accelerated, disappearing from the office and leaving it far behind. It was less than a minute before he was back in STAR Labs.

“Did he go for it?” Iris asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Barry said.

Caitlin peered at him over her mug. “Barry, how do you know he won’t just try to bargain with Colonel Black? Force her into working with him?”

“Because he doesn’t have to,” Barry answered. “Why negotiate when he can shut her down?”

Caitlin nodded and went back to tapping on her pad. Iris blinked a few times and looked at her emails. The next ten minutes dragged. Barry paced and wanted to do more than that. He didn’t want to leave the Cortex even though he could be back in seconds. Cisco arrived and settled next to Caitlin; a glance over his shoulder told Barry they were looking at the specs for her suit.

Then the computer chimed. Iris leaned over the screen. “McKinley airport just had a charter flight booked to Dulles International. Takes off in an hour.”

“That’s gotta be him,” Cisco said.

“Yeah,” Barry said. He leaned on the main console, looking at his friends. “That means we’ve probably got twenty-four hours to stop Eiling getting to Clariss’ serum.”

Iris, Cisco and Catlin were silent. This was the prize they’d knowingly offered up. Not a way to bring down Black. Not a point scored against a USMC special operation. Not Morillo’s gun or Hunter’s Turtle. Not even Clariss himself, but his work. A serum that would let Eiling mass-produce an army easily-controlled metahumans.

Cisco spoke first; calm, confident and smiling. “So what’s the plan?”

“Iris, have you heard from Felicity?”

“Just a text that said ‘working on it’.”

“Even so, what about the delivery?” Caitlin asked. “They’ll be expecting us.”

Barry looked at the floor for a second that he stretched for as long as he could. There was no way around it.

“No,” he said. “They’ll be expecting the Flash.” Nobody said anything so he went on. “The infrasound gun, the Turtle, the Racer, they’re all designed for me.”

“Then I’ll go in,” Cisco said.

“Me too.”

“And me.”

Barry gave a helpless shrug. “Guys, I can’t ask you to do this.”

“So don’t,” Iris told him. “Nobody ever asks you.”

“I won’t show up on the infra-red monitors,” Caitlin said. “And if there are reserves of the serum, they’ll need to be destroyed.”

“Anything that Hunter or Clariss set up, I can shut down,” Cisco said.

“I’m the one who’s been talking to Felicity,” Iris said.

Barry tried to smile, tried not to show any of the fear curdling his thoughts. There was nothing to do now but go forward.

“Alright,” he said. “Cisco, task the satellite to take some more photographs of the base. Let’s try and figure out where everything is. Iris, can you find like a map of that part of the Badlands? As big a scale as possible. Caitlin, I need you to write down everything you saw and heard when you went in after Cisco. I’m going to go talk to Joe and Crystal. I’ll be back in half an hour. What does everybody want for breakfast?”

* * *

They worked non-stop for the next six hours, planning and refining. The satellite took picture after picture of the base in every frequency it could. That gave them a much more detailed estimate of what each building contained. They watched vehicles come and go, people moving around. The patterns of guards started to take shape. They all read the maps over and over again until their heads ached from focussing, trying to force very last detail of the layout into their minds, knowing they’d be doing this in a hurry in the half light.

Cisco had trouble to start with. He’d never been any good at navigation. But then he started looking at the instillation like a circuit board with routes and paths of least resistance through the blocks. He mentally labelled each building as a component, and it all started fitting together. It also stopped him thinking that these weren’t resistors and microchips, they were buildings full of Marines.

Across the table, Iris looked up and rubbed her eyes. “Barry… what if they’ve got something else into the computer? Something we don’t know about?”

“Then they’ll know we’re coming,” Barry said. “But they’ll probably think that anyway.”

Cisco let out a mumble of agreement. The page blurred in front of him. He tried looking at something else to take his mind off it, but it didn’t work.

“We need a break,” Caitlin said firmly.

His head jerked up, giving her a suspicious look. Caitlin never eased the pressure on herself, if she brought it up at all it was because she was being a doctor at somebody.

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea,” Barry agreed. “We were all up really early. Try to get some rest, guys.”

Cisco nodded mutely. He didn’t know how he was going to rest. The idea that somewhere east of them, Eiling had landed in Washington and was launching his own campaign against Black made his insides twist as much as the thought of what he was going to do tomorrow. He hadn’t told anybody this, but last night he’d dreamed of metas in US Army fatigues sweeping down on a village and ripping it apart. He hadn’t seen the faces of the people who lived there, they could have been anybody, anywhere in the world. He felt like that timeline was edging closer every minute.

He didn’t mean to close his eyes, but they were just too heavy. Then he looked up, and the sky above Central City had been torn open. There was a giant, howling void where the sun should have been, and from it streamed a legion of abominations. Winged creatures that had once been people, now twisted and broken beyond recognition into monsters that fell on the mass of helpless civilians. And he knew, somehow, that this was not all, that this was everywhere, and that somewhere above all this horror was a being who made Eiling and Black look like kids playing soldiers, the darkest parts of the soul given form and driven to make endless war, not for duty, honour or territory, but for the sheer awful desire to have everything else that drew breath crushed beneath its heel –

“Cisco! Cisco!”

He snapped awake, dragged out of the vision-dream and home. Caitlin was sitting opposite him, her hands twisting in her lap. It took a lot of effort to push his body off the desk where he’d curled up.

“What did you see?” Caitlin asked.

Her expression told him he’d never pass this off as a normal dream. “I… don’t know. It was like the end of the world.”

“It’s over now,” she said gently. “You’re okay.”

He nodded, wiping some of the drool off his mouth, trying to put his head back together. They sat in silence for a while. He wondered how Doctor Carmichael would react to claims of superpowered anxiety dreams.

He changed the subject to the only thing he could think of, blurting it out before he could reconsider. “I guess I couldn’t talk you out of coming with us tomorrow?”

Caitlin tilted her head. “I was thinking of asking you the same thing,” she said to her hands. “I… I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“Hey, I don’t want anything to happen to me either. But I can’t not go. Not if you’re going.”

“So either we both stay, or we both go.”

He nodded. “That’s what it looks like. We used to, remember. Barry would be out there running around and we’d be in the Cortex with the computers and the coffee machine.”

Caitlin nodded. She held up her pale hand and stared at it for a moment. “But we’re not those people anymore, are we?”

Cisco closed his eyes. A pleasant B hummed through the air.

“No, I guess we’re not.”

More silence, more watching each other. Caitlin looked down at the desk, then sideways at his computer.

“So where is it?”

He did his best to feign ignorance. “Where’s what?”

“The thing you’ve been locked away working on for the last two days.” Her lips twitched into a smile. “My suit.”

“Your suit? I designed it.”

“I built it. In a motel room.”

“Seriously?”

“Are you going to make me beg, Cisco?”

Cisco grinned. “Nah. It’s over here.” He pulled open one of the lockers and showed her the dark suit on its frame. “You wanna try it on? I can leave.”

“That’s okay,” Caitlin said. “Just close the door and turn around.”

He obediently faced the wall and talked over the sound of moving fabric. “I replaced the linings with something just as light, but stronger so it won’t wear out as fast. The arms and legs are thinner so they won’t restrict your movement. I built extra padding into the joints, that should help with the pains you’ve been having. Then I went over all the wiring and miniaturised as many of the components as I could. But I didn’t mess with the interface and all your programming’s still there. I just tweaked the connections so the collectors will respond faster. I upped the power so you can have a bigger draw in an emergency and the new capacitor should keep up with it. It shouldn’t feel any heavier, though. And there’s the new body armour over the top.”

“Okay,” Caitlin said. “I’m ready. How does it look?”

Cisco turned around and his breath caught. He had a momentary flash of blue eyes and white hair, but blinked it away. Caitlin’s gaze was firm, her pale face caught between her dark hair and the blue-grey of the protective corsetry. She was standing perfectly upright, looking as calm, confident and comfortable as she’d done in her dresses before the accident.

“You look like a badass,” he said.

“Not me,” she responded impatiently. “The suit.”

“Oh, right.” He hit a few buttons on his computer. “Yeah. Everything’s running great.”

“Good. What about you? Do you have something?”

“For… protection, you mean? Yeah, I’ve got something. For Iris too.”

Caitlin nodded. “Then we have everything we need.”

“I guess so,” Cisco muttered.

The fear was coming back. It wasn’t even evening yet. In twelve hours they might… he didn’t want to think about where they might or might not be.

“We should eat,” Caitlin said.

Cisco let out a relieved laugh. “That a prescription, or are you just hungry?”

“Both,” Caitlin told him. “Turn around. When I look a little less… Black Canary, we can go for Indian food.”

* * *

The run to Star City gave Barry too much time to think. What could happen to him in the morning. What could happen to his friends. Oliver had told him once that they stood beside him because they didn’t want him hurt either. But he could heal. He could run. They couldn’t do either.

There were just too many possibilities. Most of them bad. But maybe it was a blessing Cisco couldn’t see the odds. Barry knew that miracles could happen. There was always crack of light in the darkness, the faintest possibility of sunrise. That had to be enough. Their plan would work; they’d all be okay. He’d go on that beach holiday with his dad and figure out how to fit back into his life in Central City. He’d risen from the – almost – dead once, after all. He hoped that a repeat performance wasn’t asking too much.

He stopped on the outskirts of Star City to change shoes. He didn’t like running this far in his own clothes, but he hoped leaving his suit behind would give Cisco something to do if the nerves got the better of him. There were other reasons. One day they really needed to put pockets in the lining.

Oliver and Felicity were waiting for him in a café with a park view. He circled it a few times, just to be safe. He didn’t entire trust Oliver not to spring another situation awareness exercise on him, and he wouldn’t put it past either of them to try to immobilise him until they could talk him out of his plan.

“Hi, Barry,” Oliver said. “Sit down. We ordered you something.”

“Thanks, guys. You know I’m immune to most sedatives, right?”

The line had been a bad joke, but he got a glare from Felicity. “No,” she growled. “I didn’t know that and definitely didn’t check with Iris that it would be pointless and too late to do it anyway.”

“Felicity,” Oliver said gently.

“It’s okay, really,” Barry said.

Felicity looked up at him. “I don’t like being lied to, Barry. But I know something you can do to make it up to me.”

“Anything.”

“Whatever stupid, dangerous, _heroic_ thing you’re doing tomorrow, come back alive.”

Barry was saved from having to respond by the arrival of his chicken sandwich. It was really good. The run had left him hungry, but he slowed down enough to savour the taste.

“Are you sure there’s nothing we can do?” Oliver asked.

Barry shook his head. “I wish there was. I think… this is between Colonel Black and the Flash. If the Green Arrow gets involved…”

“Things will escalate.”

“I think so, yeah. And if things don’t work out, then we’ll need someplace to hide.”

Oliver smiled. “My city is your city.”

“You say that now,” Felicity muttered. “If Cisco gets to your quiver he’s going to give you all the trick arrows you never wanted. Iris will be following you around with her notebook all day and all night. And Caitlin will complain about the cold, even if we could use an actual trained doctor from time to time.”

“Hey, don’t try to steal my team,” Barry protested. “Anyway, now Cisco’s back in STAR Labs, you’d have to drag him out.”

“We’ll see,” Felicity responded.

She looked away from him, out at the park, and let out a short sigh. Then she reached into her bag and pulled out a compact flash drive.

“Here.”

“Is this it?” Barry asked. “The nuke?”

Felicity stared like he’d insulted her. “No. This is not a nuke. This is Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah all rolled into one.”

“What?”

“I watched a lot of kaiju moves with Cisco while you were gone. I was trying to make him feel better. Or he was trying to make me feel better. Or he was a lying bastard.” She paused for breath. “Anyway, this virus will destroy every single piece of Clariss’ research on the base’s network. All you have to do is plug it into the server.”

“Thank you, Felicity.”

“But I’m very attached to that drive,” she said. “So I want it back. Hand-delivered in person by you. Understand?”

“I do.” He glanced at the clock. “I’d better go.”

“Before you do,” Oliver said. “One thing.”

“What?”

“This… other speedster you told me about. Whoever she is, she may be as fast as you, but you’ve been doing this longer. You know your speed better than she does. Remember that.”

“I will,” Barry said. “Thanks guys. I’ll… I’ll see you soon.”

He bolted before he could say anything else. He didn’t want to look back at Felicity resting her head on Oliver’s shoulder, tears barely hidden behind her glasses. So he ran on, heading south towards home.

Or he should have done. He’d planned to go straight back to Central City, but his past drew him westwards, and he found himself hurtling down the coast, watching the ocean ripple by. The sun kept on sinking, turning the water from blue to gold. The sky was violet above him before he reached the town ten miles north of Coast City where his father had been living.

He dialled the apartment’s number on his borrowed cell and desperately hoped it would be picked up. It was; his dad answered, saying his own name firmly and confidently the way he’d done with the house phone when Barry was a boy.

“Dad, it’s Barry.”

“Are you okay? Is everything alright?”

“I’m fine. I’m in town. I had to run an errand. You wanna grab some dinner?”

“Sure. There’s a diner place a couple of blocks up from my place. How about I buy you a burger and a malt?”

“That sounds great.”

He found the place fast enough. It was made out to look deliberately old-fashioned, with half a fifties Chevy on the roof and interior fittings right out of _Grease_. There was a replica jukebox against the wall. Barry fed a few quarters in it and picked an early Elvis record.

His dad arrived and paid for another one. They shared a hug, and Barry tried not to think of the glass wall that had separated them for so long.

“What’s going on?” his dad asked. “I know what happens when you run errands.”

He sat Barry down, got him a burger and a vanilla shake, and listened to the story of everything that had happened since Barry’s last visit. Barry didn’t linger on the events that made the papers; he focussed on what they’d found out about Black’s plans and the deal they’d struck with Eiling.

“So you’re going into this base? All of you?”

Barry nodded. He was afraid what he would see in his father’s eyes if he looked up. “Yeah. They’re expecting me, so I’ll be the diversion. They should be looking at me not Iris, Cisco and Caitlin. But…”

“What is it, son?”

“I’ve done this before. But I’ve done it alone. Nobody else could keep up with me. They were all safe back at the lab. You should see them now, dad, they’re… they’re awesome. But now they’re out there too and I can’t protect them. They’re all putting themselves in danger because I couldn’t think of another way.”

“Barry,” his father said firmly. “Son, look at me. Why are you doing this? This… mission?”

Barry sighed. “Because if Eiling gets that serum or Black keeps it then a lot of people are going to get hurt.”

“That’s what Iris, Caitlin and Cisco want to stop. They’re doing this for you, and for all the people in Central City who need to be protected from people like Black, Clariss and Eiling. Barry, do you remember what you wrote in your letter?”

Barry shivered. He’d tried his hardest not to think about that. “Dad…”

“You told me,” his dad went on, “that you were a hero because of me and your friends. This is how you pay them back. Let them stand beside you. Let them be heroes too.”

His dad smiled. Barry smiled. In his mind he saw Iris shouting the truth through her column. Caitlin infiltrating a group of hardened criminals. Cisco working day and night so he’d be ready for whatever threat STAR Labs or the CCPD faced next. Joe and Crystal spending their lives on the streets, keeping so parents and their children would be safe.

“Thanks, dad.”

“Just remember, son,” his father said “no matter what you do and what you’re wearing when you do it, I’m proud of you. Now get to work, slugger.”

Barry left him with a smile, and was back in Central City before he knew it. He stopped outside STAR Labs, watching the last light fade from the day, and then ran inside. He headed for the break room where he figured he’d find Iris working. But as he rounded the last corner he saw Joe go inside and came to a stop.

“Hey, Iris,” Joe said.

“Hi, daddy,” Iris answered, and Barry heard the faint click of her keyboard.

“What are you writing?” Joe asked.

“The whole story,” Iris replied. “Just in case, I guess. There should be a real record, even if stays locked in the STAR Labs files.”

“That’s good,” Joe said.

“Dad… you’re not going to talk me out of it. Barry needs me. They all need me.”

Joe sighed heavily. He sounded older. “That wasn’t what I was going to say. I know I did things I shouldn’t have done. I messed up. You’re my baby girl, Iris, and I just wanted to make sure nothing happened to you.”

“I know, dad.”

“I know you know. But… Barry’s gonna be back soon and… all the stuff that’s happened made me think of something and I just wanted to tell you… you would have made a hell of a cop, Iris.”

Barry heard Iris laugh, pure, happy and beautiful. “You’re damn right I would have. But… I’m a journalist. I’m not just ‘the Flash girl’. You put the truth in the courts, I put it in the papers. Nobody’s ever going to doubt I’m your daughter.”

“Oh, they’d better not,” Joe said.

Barry could hear the chuckle. He knew better than most how right Joe was. He wanted to shout his agreement, but he could wait. He had to believe they’d have time for that.

He slipped away, heading for the Cortex where he found Cisco and Caitlin. They were leaning over one of Cisco’s homebrew tactical vests, in the middle of a debate over how well it would resist Caitlin’s abilities.

“I am not trying to freeze you to prove a point,” Caitlin said.

“It’s not on purpose,” Cisco responded. “Haven’t you heard of friendly fire?”

“Keep that up it’s going to be really unfriendly,” Barry remarked. “And it’ll be ice.”

“Fine,” Cisco said. “I made one for Iris too.”

Barry smiled. “Thanks, man.”

Iris came in with Joe and looked at the body armour. “I hope mine’s the same colour.”

“Yeah,” Cisco said. “You know, in some alternate universe, there’s a version of me who fights crime wearing this awful red and yellow… thing that, you know what, I can’t even describe it.”

“Well, thank god we’ve got you instead,” Iris responded.

“Such informative t-shirts,” Caitlin said.

Cisco made an expansive gesture towards the galaxy adorning his current shirt. Barry grinned.

“Cisco, you can tell us all about… umm… other Cisco tomorrow. Any other Ciscos you like.”

“I want to hear about some of the other Joe Wests out there,” Joe said. “Like the one who’s a world famous trombone player.”

“I’ll… do my best.”

“You do that,” Joe said. “Now, let’s get to work, so we can all listen to that story.”

“Right.”

The plan ran around the room again. Around and around as the night drew on. Last refinements, last questions, last answers. One more sweep over the satellite overhead, and a confirmation that, just after midnight, General Eiling had returned from Washington.

And then they were out of time.

Barry stood. His muscles ached. His nerves sang. The world threatened to stop around him. He was tempted to let it.  He felt like he should give a speech. Isn’t that what people did at times like this?

“Well…” he said. “Let’s go.”


	21. Shock and Awe

Five miles due west of Black’s base, Barry braced himself against the rocks of the Badlands and waited. The sky ahead of him was already starting to lighten as the sun crept towards dawn, still an hour away. This was their last gamble: they didn’t know how to fight in the dark, but the Marines were trained for it. So they were waiting until it was as close to day as they dared.

Blue was leeching into the eastern sky. The stars were fading away. The Badlands were spreading towards him like a carpet being unrolled as nautical twilight came to an end.

“Almost there,” Cisco whispered into his ear.

That was the agreement. The mission would start only when Caitlin, Cisco and Iris were in position and happy with the visibility.

The world around him was silent. The nocturnal creatures were seeking shelter from the light, but it was still too dark for the diurnal ones to emerge. On any other day, this would have been a beautiful spot to stand and watch the sunrise.

“Barry, it’s me,” Iris said through the link.

“I’m here,” he answered, wishing he was standing next to her.

“We’re ready. Go.”

He waited a second, long enough for her to change her mind. But the heartbeat passed in silence. He drew a breath, hunkered down, opened himself up to the light of the Speed Force, and ran.

Three hundred miles an hour over uneven ground. One minute to reach the base. He’d light up their heat sensors like a Christmas tree and they’d be more than ready by the time he arrived. He wondered if he could sense the thrum of military boots against the ground even at this distance, the sound of mobilisation in the still morning air.

They’d see him coming, a bolt of lightning out of the dark. But the night was still behind him and Barry fervently hoped they make the same mistake of a lot of criminals and aim for the steam of light and not the source.

He rushed down into the long, shallow approach on the base’s western side, mapping the installation in his mind and the speed and timings they’d worked out. An M-16’s rate of fire and the speed of the bullet.

They let him get close. Almost too close. So close he wondered if all this had been for nothing and the diversion had failed, and then the base’s western edge exploded into gunfire.

He ran into a strobing wall of muzzle flashes. Bullets slipped effortlessly through the air, clusters of them forming almost a solid barrier in his path. He twisted around, coming in at an angle, but then there was another burst of light as the second line opened up and he had to loop sideways through a deadly river of tiny metal hail.

His brain’s speed left his body far behind. His eyes were everywhere, marking the positions of the bullets, guessing their speed and angle, slowing his steps, speeding them up, little changes which held off an impact. He felt the long, drawn-out cracks as they passed his body. He had to twist his arm, feeling the heat of a round and the punch of the miniature sonic boom against his skin as it skimmed over his wrist.

The air heaved; wave after wave rolling over him like one of Cisco’s booms, battering his ears and hammering at his skull with the sheer volume that made him wonder how a soldier endured a single minute of this without going mad. His speed dropped for just an instant, letting the waves outrun him and throwing off the aim of the group he could see on the base’s corner, before he put on another spurt of acceleration which brought him up the side of the shallow rise as he turned and charged back towards the base again.

This time he took the shallowest angle possible, running almost horizontally along the fence, close enough to see the faces of the Marines as the lightning splashed across them. But the rounds kept coming and he had to change his speed wildly, spotting gaps with microseconds to spare and leaping into them, knowing a slip-up now would be fatal.

One more pass, just to make it look good. A loop around at a distance and then a head-on charge at the north-east corner. He kicked up his speed and the Marines could only adjust so fast, their shots whizzing behind him as he ran through an ever-shrinking triangle towards the wall.

But there was no way through. The base’s corner was its strongest point. The fence didn’t have enough weight for him to run up it at speed and there was nothing at the top but barbed wire and an observation tower firing down. So he broke off and retraced his steps, retreating five hundred yards and running then heading straight for the centre of the north side fence as if he meant to punch through it.

The Marines were waiting for him. A big heavy automatic smashed the air in regular beats directly where he would have hit the barrier. He chanced it, getting as close as he dared, less than fifty yards away before he turned again and ran diagonally through the storm of bullets which seemed to grow heavier with every step he took.

He swung back towards the tower, wondering if he could risk a leap onto the wire, when he saw the flashes from the east side suddenly cease. He took what he knew was the bait and headed back that way, closing on the perimeter and pretending not to notice the black shape rushing towards him until it was almost too late.

He waited till the last instant and then cut across the Racer’s front, feeling the bayonet hiss through the air just out of reach. She was fast, recovering from the strike and turning in pursuit as Barry went for a small hillock that would give him over from the base.

He stopped in the shadow of the far side. The Racer didn’t, she almost ran straight over him, knife flickering out as Barry spun out of the way. She went past him and skidded to a stop, turning and standing bay, holding up her blade in an invitation to be stupid and charge onto it.

“We don’t have to do this,” Barry said. “Put the knife down and nobody has to get hurt.”

He was expecting it this time. The Racer’s other hand came around and the gun boomed out. Barry slipped in between the bullets, dodging five in the space of a blink.

“What’s your name?” he called. “I’m sorry, we don’t know it. We’ve just been calling you ‘the Racer’. It’s one of Cisco’s. You’re allowed to tell me you name, right?”

The Racer’s posture didn’t change. She holstered the gun without looking away from Barry.

“Staff Sergeant Estrella Rico,” she said. “United States Marine Corps.”

Barry shifted, and Rico tensed. His eyes flickered to the side, over the wide open track of the Badlands. He let her see him put one foot behind the other, ready to go.

“Alright, staff sergeant… catch me if you can!”

* * *

Iris didn’t like the first stage of the plan one bit, but they had no other way. She and Cisco crept through the shrinking shadows, low and slow, side by side on the east side of the base, using the terrain to shield them from the base’s thermal cameras. Even though the little valley in which the base was hidden meant it was hard for anyone inside to see the outside world, they weren’t taking any chances. It took over an hour to reach the top of the slope where they could peak down into Black’s installation.

But it had to be worse for Caitlin, who was walking slowly and calmly, perfectly upright, just to Iris’ left; because if the cameras could spot her at a distance then they may as well go home. But if they had been seen, the quiet buildings gave no sign.

Caitlin crouched down to avoid being silhouetted against the edge of the slope with the dawn behind her. There was just enough light to see the questioning look she gave them. The shadows below them were shifting as the day began to break.

Cisco whispered something into the radio and they kept waiting. Iris didn’t turn around in case she ruined what was left of her night vision, but she could sense her eyes trying to adapt. Cisco and Caitlin were clearly visible and she could make out enough details of the base to see where they would need to go.

Caitlin gave them another silent look. She was ready. This had seemed like such an easy plan when they’d been contemplating it from the lab computer, but in the chilly dawn with the dust of the Badlands all around her, Iris was felt sick with fear. She forced it down, looking at her friends, focussing on them and what she had to do.

She nodded to Caitlin.  Caitlin gave her a twitch nod in return. She reached out and Cisco caught her hand. Iris didn’t know if it was to steady him or to steady her. Then Caitlin slipped away and down the slope. Iris heard the slow, careful steps as she made her away towards the camera emplacement by the fence.

She waited, not daring to look, afraid she’d give Caitlin away if she so much as moved. Every second, every faint rattle, she was afraid she’d hear the siren blare or the crack of a shot.

But there was nothing. The three minutes seemed to have lasted a year.

It was time.

Iris struggled against her breathing. She had to keep calm even though she knew what she was about to ask her best friend.

“Barry… it’s me.”

“I’m here,” the radio answered.

His voice was like balm to her. She felt like her heart slowed just hearing it. Barry was here. Somehow, it would be okay. Anything else was impossible.

“We’re ready,” she said. “Go.”

The radio popped and went silent. Sixty seconds. Cisco looked over at her. There was still no noise from the base.

And then an alarm shrieked and there was a burst of shouting Iris couldn’t make out. The sound rose like a wave, but rushing to the west, away from them. Iris peeked over the lip of the rise and braced herself as Barry hurtled out of the night.

Caitlin’s voice in her ear, calling, “Now!”

A thunderstorm of gunfire broke over the far side of the base. Iris bit down a cry as she scrambled upright and threw herself down the slope. Cisco stumbled along beside her, both of them running for the chain fence.

The gunfire didn’t stop, and as long as it lasted she told herself that Barry must be alive. She’d never know if someone ahead started shooting, there’d be no time to react, so she kept on running, passing the iced-over thermal cameras and finally crashing into the fence itself.

Cisco was beside her, gasping for breath. Then Caitlin appeared on her other side and aimed something at the metal. She hadn’t been able to chill it fast enough when they’d practised, so they’d found an alternative: a liquid nitrogen spray that froze through the links. Captain Cold would have been proud.

Caitlin was finished in seconds and then she and Iris grabbed hold of the fence around the weak spot and kicked as hard as they could. Two blows and Cisco joined them in a third which wrenched out an oval gap. Iris went through first, checking ahead and seeing no-one. She didn’t wait, running for the shelter of the nearest building as the sound of shooting suddenly stopped.

Cisco crashed into the shadows next to her with Caitlin behind him. They paused for a moment, gulping air, waiting to see if they’d been spotted.

“The server building, then Clariss’ lab,” Iris said firmly. “We walk. And we stick together.”

The base layout was clear in her head. They were two minutes away from the building with one of the biggest heat signatures. She fervently hoped it was the right one.

Walking was the hardest part. Running would make too much noise, attract too much attention, so they strode quickly but steadily towards the heart of the base, their steps drowned out by the Marines rushing for its perimeter. There were still just enough shadows left to hide in, and the growing light guided their way as they slid around the patrols.

“There!” Iris hissed, pointing at the building across from them.

“You sure?” Cisco asked.

“Yeah.” Iris nodded. “Plus… the two guards.”

The entrance to the building was flanked. The guards could have been made of stone. They’d stand there and obey their orders till the end of the world.

“Iris,” Caitlin said, “run straight for the door. Cisco and I will handle the guards.”

“Yeah...” Cisco muttered. “Sure.”

“Okay...” Caitlin whispered. “Go!”

Iris bolted. The Marines started shouting, one of them raising his radio and the other taking aim. Then an ice blast picked up the one on the left and threw him head over heels. His partner half-turned and was knocked straight backwards, hitting the wall and sliding down.

That was all Iris saw before she ripped open the door and plunged into the darkness that waited for her. She was in the right place. She could see computers blinking in the gloom around her. Cisco and Caitlin scrambled in and pushed the door closed, cutting most of the remaining light.

“Computer lab,” Iris confirmed. “Can you see the servers?”

“Probably through there.” Cisco waved at the far end of the room.

The rows of PCs were packed as close together as possible. Some were still on standby, their fans whispering to each other. There was plenty of space to hide, but Iris couldn’t shake the feeling that the scratches and scrapes she could hear weren’t all being made by them.

The door they reached had a ‘Restricted Access’ sign on it, but it wasn’t locked. Cisco opened it and Iris peered through. There were two irregular rings of cabinets inside, like some ancient stone circle. Cisco pulled open the nearest one. It was filled with cabling rather than components.

“Try the inner ones,” Caitlin suggested.

Cisco nodded. He shuffled forward and then stopped. “Hold up. Look.”

There was a big, heavy air conditioning unit built into the ceiling, generating a constant breeze inside. Except for the area directly in front of them, between the two rings. Cisco pulled a penny out of his pocket and tossed it forward. It froze, trapped in the Turtle field that Barry probably would have run straight into if he’d been here.

“What now?” Caitlin asked.

Iris almost didn’t hear the scrape of a step behind her. She was already throwing herself to the side when a gunshot shattered the silence. Caitlin and Cisco went the other way, disappearing behind the electrical monoliths.

“Who is that?” a voice shouted from the darkness beyond the doorway. Iris thought she recognised it.

There was a volley of whispering to one side and then, astonishingly, Cisco shouted, “Professor Hunter, it’s Cisco Ramon.”

Iris crawled towards the back of the room, using the cabinets for cover. Cisco was moving too.

“I guess you didn’t buy the Flash’s distraction, huh? Look, if you promise not to shoot me, I’ll come out.”

Hunter was headed the other way, towards Cisco. Iris turned back the way she’d come, wondering if she could get behind him.

“Who’s with you?” Hunter called.

“Nobody,” Cisco answered. “It’s just me.”

“You’re lying.”

Cisco didn’t answer. Iris thought she heard the sound of a cabinet opening. Hunter was almost opposite her. He’d be on top of the others if they’d stopped.

“I’m here too, Professor!” she shouted.

Hunter turned. She saw the shadow of his pistol against the wall.

“Iris West, _Central City Picture News_. I was at your trial.”

“The Flash Girl,” Hunter growled.

“That’s me,” Iris responded. “Do you want to give a statement, Professor Zoom?”

Somewhere over on her left, there was a sharp electrical crack. She felt a rush of air into the place where it had been still, and heard the sound of a coin hit the floor.

“Iris, go!” Cisco yelled

Iris didn’t hesitate. She dived between the rings and landed heavily next to one of the servers. She could feel the heat coming off it, hear the hum under her fingertips as she pulled the protective cabinet open and searched for the right port.

Then the cold weight of a gun barrel pressed into the back of her neck. “Stop. Stand up.”

She straightened, rising slowly enough to scan the cabinet’s interior, seeing what she wanted. The flash drive was clenched in her left hand.

When she turned, Hunter’s pistol was pointed at her chest. She kept her eyes on him like it wasn’t there.

“Mr Ramon,” he said. “Come out now or I will kill your friend.”

Iris shivered. But it wasn’t from fear. A chilly breeze had blown through the room hard enough to rustle her hair and it wasn’t coming from the air conditioner.

Caitlin stepped out into the open and said, in a voice like the North Wind, “Do you remember me, professor?”

Hunter’s head snapped around. Iris didn’t know if Caitlin could use her powers in here, but she wouldn’t need to. Iris smashed her left hand into the gun and drove her foot into the big man’s knee. Hunter stumbled backwards as Iris turned. There was a crack as Caitlin hit him as well, but Iris focussed on finding the slot she’d seen and shoving Felicity’s drive into it.

The little LED flickered red, solidified and then turned green, just as Caitlin grabbed Iris and hauled her back, away from Hunter as he struck out and then came forward, levelling his gun.

“Cisco!” Caitlin yelled.

 Hunter hesitated. He had just enough time to realise where he was standing, and then the Turtle field seized him and stopped him completely.

“Did you do it?” Caitlin asked.

“Yeah,” Iris said breathlessly.

“Awesome,” Cisco said. He walked up to the frozen scientist and waved a hand in front of his face. “We should put him in a museum, don’t you think? Call it _Irony_.”

“Clariss first, jokes later,” Iris said. “Okay?”

“Right,” Cisco said.

They walked back past the computers. Iris checked the door. Everything seemed quiet. Her instincts twisted, but there was no time for second guessing.

“Come on.”

She headed outside, jogging for the next building. But then a roar of bullets crackled across the ground in front of her. She skidded to a stop and Cisco slammed into her. They turned, trying to catch hold of Caitlin, as another burst cut them off on the other side.

They turned towards the source of the shots. A shape advanced out of the growing dawn. It was almost too big to be a person; bipedal and covered in black body armour so heavy it looked like it had been built to fight a tank. The head was protected by a helmet like Morillo’s, and the wrists bore gauntlets that could have come straight from Floyd Lawton.

“You think they recruited Alex Murphy?” Cisco muttered weakly.

Then the armoured shape spoke. “Cisco Ramon. Iris West. Caitlin Snow. I am Colonel Black. This is the Mantle of Project Wayland, and you are going to help me field test it.”

* * *

Barry Allen raced across the Badlands, and the woman in black followed.

Out in the open, with time to think, it had taken him only a few seconds to realise that her suit wasn’t like Hunter’s. The original accelerator suit had pushed its wearer up to a speed where interaction with the rest of the world was nearly impossible, and Barry still had nightmares about being trapped in that place. This one was different, allowing its wearer to speed up and slow down at will. It was designed to let the Racer run down other speedsters.

She kept pace with him, even though they were moving at over four hundred miles an hour. Barry held that speed. He didn’t know if they knew what he was capable of, and he didn’t want to show his hand until the right moment. And part of him was curious. Part of him wanted to see what Rico could do.

First test was cornering. He zigzagged away from the base, heading west and trying to keep Rico between him and the sun. But after a few minutes he noticed the gap between them was opening. She was falling back. He didn’t turn the next time, running in a slow arc and watching her follow the same course. She was making sure she stayed between him and the base, giving herself enough time to react if he tried to get around her.

He reversed direction, and so did she, looping eastward. That settled it. She didn’t quite have his turning circle.

He’d let himself get distracted again, caught up in playing tag. She gradually closed in, waiting for the right moment to strike, and then suddenly swept towards him. The bayonet stabbed out and he lurched sideways to keep it from going between his ribs. He almost stumbled, the ground shifting and he fought to keep his footing. Rico pressed the advantage, striking at his exposed torso. He slowed abruptly, and the blade sliced across his arm instead. The split-second relief gave him enough time to steady himself and speed up again. She followed him all the way to five hundred miles an hour.

He didn’t want to risk going any faster now. His eyes flicked over her blurring legs, his mind slowing them till he could see the footfalls. She’d trained out here, running over this broken ground, whereas he was used to the smooth city streets. If he lost his balance going this fast, he was finished.

She must have realised that too, because she rushed towards him again, not with the knife this time but with low tackle, driving into him above the hip and throwing him to the side. He almost stumbled and had to jump, nearly flying down the side of a small hill and finding a good piece of solid earth to land on. Regaining his balance, he thought it was a shame there weren’t any proper mountains around; he didn’t think she’d follow him up one of those.

He glanced over his shoulder. She was hanging back again, planning. He had to hold her attention. He wondered how much time the others would need, and how long Rico could keep this up.

He took a risk, slowing far faster than she could, dropping behind her and then speeding up again. She struck backwards blindly and then tried the same trick, decelerating suddenly with the knife reaching out. But Barry saw it coming and a slipped sideways to safety.

The ground was limiting his speed again. Even his mind was straining with the effort of watching his feet, and the ground ahead, and Rico, and the knife. He’d been fighting on reflex and he knew he had to stop, because her training would beat his instincts eventually.

They split apart to pass a boulder blocking their path, and Barry didn’t close the distance again. He kept turning, drifting slowly north, minding his feet and thinking about Rico just enough to keep out of her reach. She made another run for him, he steered away. She tried again and he retreated. The bayonet cut nothing but air. Her body checks wouldn’t connect.

She hadn’t realised what was going on. That while Barry was declining battle, he was drawing them both towards the smoother ground near the river. Each step was more certain than the last; at this time of year the ground on this part of the Badlands was hard, flat and level.

He could accelerate here. He could sweep out in front of her and come around head-to-head. He dismissed it immediately, though; a collision at this speed would kill them both.

That left her other vulnerability: the suit itself.

He closed on her. They were nearing six hundred miles an hour but almost stationary relative to each other. The knife hissed out, but he shifted his speed, rising and falling, never in the same place for more than an instant so her blows went wide. He hit back, aiming for the accelerator suit, hoping to hit some vital part of it. But her elbow struck his hand and she nearly drove the knife into his armpit. He fell back, trying again from a different angle. Again, easily deflected. He threw a punch downwards at her head, this time it was her turn to duck away.

She stabbed at him again. He blocked that. She somehow managed to kick at his legs and force an off-balance jump. He landed and blocked two more cuts, but the third drew more blood on his forearm. He grabbed for her knife hand, but forgot about her other one and for a terrifying instant she had a grip on his wrist before he managed to wrench himself free.

He couldn’t go toe-to-toe with her. The smattering of lessons he’d picked up from Oliver were no match for military unarmed combat training. She was a small woman, used to fighting guys who were bigger and stronger than she was. Even at this speed, she could read his blows before he made them, compensating for his advantage.

Because, he realised, she wasn’t as fast as him.

There it was. The last trick he had up his scarlet sleeve. His experience. Fighting on his terms not on hers.

He changed direction again, turning east along the flat ground, heading straight towards the sunrise and parallel to the river as if he were trying to get around her and back to the base. His speed kept rising and she kept matching his pace. Six hundred miles an hour. Six-fifty. Seven hundred. Pushing harder and harder as if he was simply trying to outrun her and knowing that as long as she could, she would chase him.

He wondered if she realised how fast they were travelling. He did. He couldn’t explain it, but he had an innate sense of his own velocity. Perhaps it was experience, perhaps it was the Speed Force, perhaps something else entirely. But to anyone without that ability, the sheer pace of the run would be overwhelming.

Rico was still level with him, but he could see something was starting to change. Her posture had tensed; she was hunched further over. Her steps weren’t as loose and easy as they’d been before. It was like she was pushing against something she couldn’t see.

He drew her onward, ever onward, faster and faster still. The strain was really starting to show now. She’d bent her head. Her body was trembling with the effort, fighting against the invisible opponent pressing on her. Barry could feel it too, but he knew it well and he knew what it meant, and that it was no match for the power of the Speed Force.

He hesitated for an instant, but it was the only way. As if he running out of energy, he dropped back, little by little, coming level with the Racer. She didn’t attack, her head barely turned. She was straining herself and her suit right to the limit as they charged, side by side, into the maw of the demon that lived in the air at seven hundred and sixty-eight miles per hour.

And Barry struck. He let the lightning fill him, driving him up to a speed beyond the reach of Clariss’ serum or Hunter’s machine, and smashed through the sound barrier.

 The sonic boom slammed into Rico and knocked her off her feet. For a moment she was hurtling through the air, auguring in with the speed of a fighter plane. Then Barry caught her. He stumbled and dig his fingers in, holding on desperately as his feet fought their momentum, bringing himself to a stop at the end of a mile-long skid through the dusty ground.

He laid Rico down and hands blurred as he shredded the accelerator suit’s critical components. She didn’t move, but he could hear her breathing. He carefully checked her neck and then removed the helmet. The shockwave had hit her like a brick wall and knocked her out cold.

Barry stood over her, getting his bearings and getting his breath back.  He allowed himself a whole minute before he picked the small woman up, slung her over his shoulder and ran for the interstate, using the ribbon of asphalt to guide him. As he headed back and the terrain started to take shape again, he caught sight of a cloud of dust rising from one of the dirt tracks through the wilderness.  

Hoping he wasn’t making the wrong choice, he turned towards it.

* * *

Caitlin didn’t hesitate. She threw up her arms, summoning the most powerful gust of air she could and driving it toward Black. It was joined mid-flight by Cisco’s boom, boosting it into a hurricane-force gale that crashed into the armoured suit and the Marines forming up behind it.

Then she turned her head and yelled over the wind, “Run, Iris! Run!”

“Not without you!” Iris shouted back.

The noise of the attack faded. The air stilled, but over the sound of rattling dust they heard the footsteps and Black strode out of the cloud. Frost coated the suit, but that was already melting. The shockwave didn’t seem to have made a dent.

Iris grabbed Caitlin’s arm in one hand and Cisco’s in the other. “Come on!”

They fled. Cisco threw another boom over his shoulder, which hit the ground at Black’s feet and kicked up a fountain of debris. Caitlin reached out into the air around them, trying to find enough moisture to pull down a fog bank. Tendrils of mist started to form, but they were moving too fast for them to condense.

Another boom and another wild ice blast and then Cisco brought them to a stop at a junction. “Clariss is that way!”

“How do you know?” Iris gasped.

“Bastard’s using the sound suppressor. I can feel it.”

“But what about your powers?” Caitlin demanded.

“Don’t need them. You got my back, right?”

Caitlin managed a nod. Iris’ was much more firm. “Can you see Black?”

Caitlin peaked around the corner, back the way they had come. No sign of the suit, or the Marines. She wondered if Black would keep her reserves out of harm’s way, or if it wasn’t a fair test unless the suit and driver did the work. And it made sense not to come straight at them, Black knew what they could do, and that they couldn’t escape. She had all the time she needed to hunt them.

“I can’t see her. Cisco, how far?”

“I don’t know… close.”

The pause had bought Caitlin the time she needed to focus. The fog gathered out in the open ahead of them. She didn’t want to pull it too close or that would give them away. She managed to push it, shifting the temperature enough to create a faint breeze which blew it slowly but surely around the other buildings. Then, finally, she turned up the power and let it thicken and roll over them.

“How long?” Iris whispered.

Caitlin shrugged. She hadn’t been sure it would work at all. “A few minutes.”

“Then let’s go. Slow and quiet.”

They crept forward. Cisco pointed to the left and started moving in that direction. Iris brought up the rear. For a moment, it seemed like they were alone.

Then the thunderclap split the fog and the bullets cracked between them. Cisco threw his arm out, and then Caitlin felt the air thicken as the boom scattered harmlessly.

“Shit!”

Another volley and the world slowed down as Iris spun and fell. Cisco dived for her, grabbing her arm and, without thinking, Caitlin stepped in front of them, trying to shield them from the next shots. The shots never came. She hesitated, uncomprehendingly, and then seized Iris’ other arm. Incredibly, Iris kicked her legs out and they were able to haul her around the corner of a building as more rounds zipped off the stonework.

Training overrode the terror. “Iris? Iris, where are you hit?”

“Fuck!” Iris exclaimed. “Dad didn’t say how much that hurt!”

Her eyes were focussed and clear. There was a tear on the left side of her flak jacket, but no blood. The bullet hadn’t made it through.

“That suit’s got thermal goggles,” Cisco said. He blinked at Caitlin. “How did you know?”

She hadn’t, but she didn’t know how to say it. There wasn’t time. The fog was already fading and she could hear the Mantle’s heavy steps. But on their far side was another building, a long low structure with something metallic mounted to the side that looked exactly like an air filter. The ground in front of it had been smoothed out, but she could see the narrow ruts where equipment trolleys had been wheeled there and up the ramp. She hit Cisco on the shoulder and pointed. The door had three signs on it: ‘No Entry’, Biohazard, and the entwined snakes of the caduceus.

“Alright…” Cisco muttered. “Let’s go see if the doctor is in.”

“I’ll cover you,” Caitlin said.

Iris nodded. This was no time for an argument. Caitlin could blind infra-red goggles and it would take Black a few seconds to switch over to the suit’s backups. She took a deep breath and leapt out, landing on her knees in the open. Black was fifty feet away, and a bullet went straight over her head before her own blast hit the suit and blinded the sensors. She kept it up, using all the power she had as Black advanced, bullets crackling wildly around her.

Cisco ran past her, then Iris, then one of them yelled, “Go!”

She scrambled out of the dirt, added one last pulse to the attack and then ran for the door of Clariss’ lab. All three of them hit it at the same moment and crashed through onto the ground. There was another shot from somewhere inside, but it sounded different; Caitlin looked up to see a dart sticking out of the door before Iris kicked it shut.

The floor was humming with the power of the sound suppressor. Clariss must have boosted the power. She could almost hear it. Cisco had squeezed his eyes shut like it was actually causing him pain.

“Turn it off,” he hissed. “Turn it off.”

She grabbed his hand. “Block it out. Concentrate.”

He opened his eyes, turned his head and looked out from the long table they were crouched behind. It ran the length of a lab probably made from a converted sick bay, and Caitlin could sense that whoever had fired the dart was hiding at the far end.

“Clariss!” Cisco shouted. “You’d better get out or your boss is gonna shoot us all!”

“I don’t think so, Cisco!”

“Come on then!” Cisco responded. “Inject yourself with that crap, switch off the generator and we’ll see how I do when I’m not tied to a chair!”

“Caitlin,” Iris hissed. “There’s a glass storage unit over there. It’s got… some sort of red light in it.”

“Temperature control,” Caitlin replied. “For the serum. It’s unstable.”

“You can drop the temperature,” Cisco said.

“If I can get close.”

She realised then that Clariss hadn’t answered Cisco’s last jibe. He tried again. “Clariss, what do you say? You and me, superpower showdown?”

Still no reply. Caitlin wondered if Clariss was just trying to buy time for Black to decide she was willing to risk a shoot-out in a sensitive lab. Or there was another possibility, one that hit Caitlin at the same moment she saw Cisco’s eyes widen.

“It doesn’t work on you, does it?” Cisco called. “You’re not one of the ten percent!”

“I just need time to refine it!” Clariss yelled.

“You’re not gonna get any!” Cisco shouted.

He uncoiled, jumping straight up onto the lab table and throwing himself down it. Clariss scrambled sideways to aim his pistol just as Iris grabbed something off the bench and hurled it at him. The scientist ducked and Cisco crashed into him, throwing them both against the wall.

Then it was Caitlin’s turn, dodging around the table’s far side and running for the serum storage.

Clariss threw a punch at Cisco. Cisco stepped back, grabbed the outstretched arm and twisted it, pulling Clariss around and ramming him into the wall. Clariss kicked backwards into his knee and then elbowed Cisco in the face. Cisco held on.

Caitlin hit the storage unit palm-first. There wasn’t time to decipher the controls, but then she didn’t need them. She could feel the heat through the glass, keeping the carefully-sealed serum in the containers and injection guns at around human body temperature. That temperature started dropping before Caitlin even realised she was doing it. The suit pulled the heat away faster than it could be replaced; much faster. The homeostasis warning went off. Clariss desperately twisted his head around and shrieked something at her as the cabinet passed room temperature and kept on falling. She could almost see the protein structures twisting out of shape and then ice crystals growing inside them like mountains, tearing the fragile bonds to shreds and holding the scattered fragments fast inside an unbreakable lattice.

The glass screen in front of her was covered in a sheet of blue-white frost. Everything on the other side was frozen solid.

“No!”

Clariss tore out of Cisco’s grip and threw himself at her. He seized her arm and her college self-defence classes kicked in as she twisted and curled up, throwing Clariss past her onto the floor, flat on his back.

It took a long, slowly moment for him to get up again. Caitlin stepped back, finding her balance.

And then Cisco punched Clariss in the nose. He dropped like a rock and didn’t move.

“Feel better?” Iris called.

“Yeah. How’s the suppressor going?”

“Hang on… got it.”

Iris pulled the cable out of the back of the machine and the infrasound died away. The tension on Cisco’s face eased a little, and then his mouth dropped open at the sound of something too faint for her to hear.

The lab’s windows exploded inwards. A hail of gunfire tore through the glass and the frames around them. Caitlin dived for the slippery floor, pressing her hands over her ears until the noise subsided.

“What about surrendering?” she asked.

Cisco uncurled long enough to shrug. “You guys wanna surrender?” he yelled.

There was another volley of deafening fire. It cut off suddenly, and Caitlin heard a flat thump from outside. She glimpsed a silver shape in the window, spewing gas, before Cisco hit it with a boom and sent it back the way it had come. There was an explosive hiss and a lot of shouting. That would only buy them a few minutes.

Iris risked a peek through one of the places a bullet had penetrated the wall. “The Marines are falling back, but Black’s still out there. What do we do?”

Cisco looked nervously at them both. “I guess… either we stay in here and hope Barry can come get us… or we go out there.”

“Fight,” Iris said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yeah,” Cisco agreed.

There was no logic for this. No time to plan and no more options. Black had left them a simple choice: they fought or they died.

“Okay,” Caitlin said. “How? I’ve hit her suit. We both have. We couldn’t stop it.”

“It’s Kevlar,” Cisco said. “That stuff’s good to like minus two hundred.”

“What about her helmet?” Iris asked. “And the gauntlets? They’re metal, right?”

Caitlin nodded. The plan clicked together easily. Since the night she’d seen Barry outrun a tornado few things seemed impossible.

“Guns first, then the helmet,” she said. “I’ll freeze, you boom.”

Iris slithered across the floor, earning a few wild shots, but they sounded like they came from Black’s guns, not the Marine assault rifles. She returned clutching Clariss’ tranquiliser pistol.

“Just in case,” she said.

“Iris…” Caitlin muttered. “If this doesn’t work… tell Barry… we had to try.”

“Colonel!” Cisco shouted. “We’re coming out! You want Vibe and Killer Frost? You’ll get ‘em!”

No shots answered them this time. Caitlin stood up. She waited an awful second for the gunfire, but none came. She stepped through the door, exposed and with her hands raised. Still nothing. Black waited for them at the bottom of the ramp with the arms of the suit by her side. She couldn’t see the Marines, but knew they’d be close by.

The sun was up now. The last of the fog had burned away. Adrenaline made the seconds crawl.

She almost didn’t hear Cisco speak. “Try not,” he whispered. “Do… or do not.”

Caitlin risked one last look at him out of the corner of her eye. “Then let’s do this.”

She broke right. Cisco went left. Black’s guns swept up, but she was still having trouble tracking Caitlin, who focussed on the gauntlet and reached out to freeze it. Cisco hit Black’s other arm with a boom, driving it downwards as she fired. Then they reached the point where Black couldn’t fire at both of them and there was a moment of hesitation as the helmet turned. Cisco hit her again, missing the gauntlet this time but cracking against the upper arm. Even through the armour she would have felt the blow.

That seemed to make up Black’s mind because she turned away, trying to aim both guns at Cisco. Caitlin changed direction as well, desperate to keep line of sight on the wrist, pulling and pulling as hard as the suit would let her. The miniature gun rattled two bullets to Cisco’s side before it gave a cracking screech of protested and stopped. And then Cisco leapt forward and sent another boom straight into its twin, ripping into the loading mechanism.

Black reached up with her iced-over hand smacked it into the magazine, but it was no good. One gauntlet was frozen, the other jammed. She abandoned the effort, throwing a heavy punch at Cisco as he scrambled backwards, both he and Caitlin aiming shots at Black’s legs to keep her still and distracted.

Caitlin collided sideways with Cisco, braced against him in a roar of ice and noise as she reached out for the jet-black mask and tore the heat from it. She could feel Cisco’s attack too. It wasn’t a boom this time, he was focussing his powers inside the metal and plastic, rattling at the structural bonds as they became less and less elastic.

Everything has a weak spot, and they found Black’s. Somewhere in the layers of the helmet’s reinforced construction was a flaw probably only visible through a microscope. But under the pressure of unforgiving cold and vibration, that flaw gave way and the helmet split open. Black’s head was thrown back as she flailed against the assault, stumbling drunkenly in a circle and dragged down by disorientation and the weight of the suit.

Then there was a single compressed pop in the morning air and she fell to the ground with a dart in her exposed neck.

Iris strode down the ramp towards them, with the tranquilizer gun levelled. “Nice shot,” Cisco said breathlessly.

They hugged. Caitlin wanted to join them, but she still had a duty. She made her hands stop shaking for long enough to reach through the remains of Black’s helmet and check her pulse.

“She’s alive!”

There was a clatter of boots and metal. Twenty Marines swarmed out of cover and levelled their weapons. Caitlin raised her hands, retreating towards her friends as the Marines formed a protective line around their fallen commander. Iris carefully dropped the dart pistol as she, Caitlin and Cisco backed away towards the wall of the ruined lab. A junior officer yelling for a corpsman and then turned towards a man with oak leaves on his uniform, everyone waiting for the next order to the men with the guns.

Caitlin felt the vibration a split-second before it happened. She didn’t even have time to see the flash of light before a thunderclap exploded through the centre of the base. She shrieked and covered her eyes, but didn’t feel the shockwave as Cisco threw up his hands to catch it. The Marines were smashed back into a disorganised broken mass. It was a long moment before anybody could think straight. The Marines shook their heads and exchanged astonished stares, wondering at the bomb which had apparently gone off and done no damage at all.

 The desert wind blew past them, dry and gentle, and the dust cloud parted. General Eiling walked slowly out of it. Even he had the slightly slack expression of someone who’d had a front-row seat for the impossible.

“Who’s in charge here?” he barked, then selected the nearest Marine who’d made it to his feet. “Who’s your commanding officer?”

“Major Holland,” said the officer with the oak leaves, straightening up. “With respect, general, you are not in my chain of command.”

Eiling almost looked amused. “But I have a letter here from someone who is. Our Commander in Chief.” He pulled a thick sheet of paper from his fatigues and handed it over. “By order of the President of the United States, Project Wayland is suspended. Colonel Black is relieved of command and will be taken into custody by me and my men – who’ll be arriving shortly – pending a full inquiry.”

Major Holland’s eyes followed the formal wording that Eiling had summarised, then he turned to his men. “Stand down. Lieutenant, go and open the gates for the general’s convoy.”

Eiling looked down at Black and the corpsman checking her. “If the project couldn’t get the better of three civilians, major,” he remarked. “I think we both know it’s a failure.”

Holland’s face twisted, but he came to attention and saluted. Eiling made him wait and then returned it.

There was a gust of wind and a flash of light. Caitlin looked around and Barry was standing at Iris’ side. He’d been the thunderbolt, running through the base at supersonic speed and letting the shockwave do the rest.

“You guys okay?” he asked.

Iris grabbed his hand. “We are.”

“Yeah,” Cisco said. “You didn’t doubt us, did you?”

Barry grinned. “Not for a second.”

Caitlin gestured at the new marks on the suit. “What about you?”

 “Nothing that won’t heal. I promise.”

Eiling turned and gave them all an unimpressed look. They were battered, shaken and scared, but they had won.

“Well, _Flash_ ,” he said. “This is some real John Wayne shit you pulled.” Barry didn’t respond and Eiling crossed his arms. “Alright. Major, where is Doctor Clariss?”

In answer to his question, the door of the lab opened. Clariss was led out with a Marine corporal holding on to his arm. He pulled himself free and stared at Eiling.

“You’re Clariss?” Eiling asked. “You’re coming with us.”

“No, he’s not!”

Everyone turned. Joe and Crystal had appeared around the building’s far side. Barry’s lips twitched slightly; he must have picked them up after he dropped off Eiling.

“Detectives,” the general said slowly.

Joe didn’t look at him. “Edward Clariss,” he said, “we have a warrant for your arrest on charges of conspiracy to commit armed robbery and receiving stolen goods.”

“What?” Clariss exclaimed.

“On what evidence, detective?” Eiling growled.

“Seventy thousand dollars you gave to Leonard Snart’s gang for the Hatton Plaza jewels,” Crystal explained. “And the testimony of Roscoe Dillon. He sang like a canary.”

“You’re out of your jurisdiction,” Eiling said.

Joe smiled. “So are you, general. You wanna stop us?”

Then Clariss made a decision of his own. He shoved his Marine escort to one side and jumped off the ramp, sprinting for the gap in the lines of people. But he only made it a few steps before Cisco tackled him. There was a messy scuffle; Clariss hit Cisco in the shoulder before Cisco threw him to the ground.

“It’s over, man,” Cisco said.

Clariss smiled. “Almost.”

Cisco’s brow furrowed. He looked up at Caitlin and Iris and his eyes lost their focus.

“Guys… I feel… kinda weird…”

And then he fell. Barry caught him before he hit the ground and tried to steady him. “Caitlin! He’s having a seizure!”

Caitlin reached them a second later. Cisco’s whole body was shaking. His limbs twitched uncontrollably, striking at Barry and slipping off the surface of the suit. His eyes were flickering wildly and his jaw was clenched so hard the muscles stood out against his cheeks.

She almost froze. It was nearly too much. She was aware of Iris kneeling by Cisco’s head whispering to him, but also of the thousand things that could cause a seizure and the tsunami of fear rearing up inside her. But she had to help him.

“Get his jacket off,” she told Barry.

There was a flicker of light and the body armour was gone. Caitlin pressed her hand to his neck, trying to find the pulse. The skin was hot under her fingers and it was tingling. The feeling increased. Not a tingle; a vibration.

“Caitlin,” Barry said, “he’s…”

One of Cisco’s hands blurred. A shockwave blasted past Barry’s head. It hit the corner of a building and ripped the roof open like it was made of tinfoil.

Caitlin grabbed Cisco’s other arm. The one Clariss had hit. The little red needle track made her heart stutter.

She looked up at Clariss. He was standing over them, just watching. She saw the little silver injection gun in his hand. He met her eyes and he smiled.

“So that’s what it does to you.”

Barry saw it too. “His powers are overloading! He’s gonna shake apart. Caitlin, what do we do?”

Cisco nearly bounced into the air. There was another uncontrolled boom into the ground that shook everyone on their feet. Holland yelled at the Marines to fall back. Even Eiling retreated. Joe and Crystal stayed where they were.

Cisco was still vibrating. His body was starting to shimmer. She’d seen this before. Barry, after his final fight with Professor Hunter, when they’d used the Cold Tap to drag him back to normal speed. The machine had been able to pull the excess energy from his molecules, but they’d made sure it could never be rebuilt.

She didn’t have the Tap. But she had something else. Cold was the enemy of speed, after all.

She stood, and turned to Clariss. His eyebrows went up, preparing for threats or insults. There wasn’t time for that, so she just pulled the heat from the air around him, dropping it to freezing. His startled gasp steamed in the air and he convulsively shivered as she walked towards him. He stepped back, but the cold followed him.

“Where’s the other one?” she asked.

“The… other what?” he said, and his teeth chattered.

“The other injection gun,” she told him. “You wouldn’t waste one on Cisco if that’s all you had. Where is it?”

Clariss backed up another step, stumbling towards Joe and Crystal as though he hoped they’d save him.

Barry shouted her name. She ignored it. She reached out and pressed a single finger against Clariss’ chest. “I will turn your heart into a block of ice. Now _give it to me_.”

Clariss’ numb hands tugged at the lining of his lab coat. He nearly dropped the injector as he held it out. She snatched it from him without a word and strode back towards Cisco. The liquid in the little gun was deep blue. She rolled up her sleeve. 

“Barry, Iris, back away,” she said.

“Caitlin, you don’t know what that will do to you!” Iris exclaimed.

“Yes, I do,” she said quietly.

The vibration was much worse now. It was almost like Cisco was glowing. She wondered if this would tear his cells and even his atoms apart, or if he’d vibrate right through the barriers between the universes he saw.

“Caitlin, it could kill you,” Barry said.

“Then stop me!” she screamed. “Because I am not going to let him die!”

Barry was fast enough. He could take the injector from her in a blink. But he didn’t. He laid Cisco’s arm against the ground and backed away. Iris whispered a few words in Cisco’s ear and then scrambled up to join him. Caitlin gave them a last look as she pressed the injector against her skin.

Ever since the accident she’d been caught between two people. Caitlin Snow and Killer Frost. She’d wondered so many times which one she really was. But perhaps, just this once, she could be both.

She closed her eyes and pulled the little trigger.

She didn’t feel the serum punched into her blood stream, but she felt its effects almost immediately. A little tingle, starting in her arm and spreading out through her entire body. For the first time in so long, she felt the cold, felt it inside her. She could feel heat too, in the air, shifting in the wind, growing with the dawning sunlight.

Cisco was still there. He was the same but different. She could see the vibrations, but she could also sense them, the energy of the molecules as they shook against each other. It was like being able to pick out each raindrop in a thundercloud.

She knelt at his side. This close, the vibrations were humming through the air. They were shifting all the time, rising and falling through notes she couldn’t describe. It was the most beautiful song Caitlin had ever heard.

She leaned over him, bending close, almost close enough to touch his shimmering skin. She let out cool breath against his face so he’d know she was there, looking into his eyes as they fought to see.

“Cisco? Cisco, it’s me. It’s alright. I’m here. You’ll be okay, I promise.” She smiled for him, one last time. “Doctor Snow will see you now.”

She pressed her hands over his heart and the power inside her, the hunger for heat, opened its jaws. All that boiling entropy was suddenly given an escape route and poured down it, roaring out of his body and into hers. It burned through her like a tidal wave and plunged into the impossible void at her core. She was a conduit now, just a sink for the vortex of vibration that Cisco pulled from the fabric of reality, trying desperately to shed it as fast as it was created.

But that seemed impossible. The energy grew every second, like trying to drain a cup the size of an ocean.  It all just kept coming, searing against her skin, burning through her suit, filling her with more heat than she could bear. She might have screamed. She wasn’t made of ice anymore, she was made of fire.

But she wouldn’t give in. She fought to the end, holding on against the molecular inferno that threatened to sweep her away. Until the currents loosened their grip. The whirlpool of energy slowed. The fire dimmed and died.

Caitlin slumped against Cisco’s chest. She let herself fall into the welcoming darkness, whispering a last request: _live_. He wasn’t shimmering anymore. He wasn’t even trembling. The humming noise had faded, and in its place she could hear a sound like the beat of distant wings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After everything that happened in that extra-long chapter, all I can really do here is credit a source: the description of Barry's fight with the Racer was inspired in part by elements of Tom Wolfe's book 'The Right Stuff', whose early chapters deal with the first attempts at supersonic flight. It is from him I borrowed the description of the sound barrier as 'a demon that lived in the air'. I feel certain it's a book Barry read, probably before he could do it himself on foot. 
> 
> On the subject of inspiration, Staff Sergeant Rico's name is borrowed from the protagonist of Robert Heinlin's 'Starship Troopers', along with several other traits which I deliberately left un-described.


	22. For Valour

Caitlin felt warm.

No, that was wrong. She felt the warmth. She could feel it outside her body. Not a constant presence but a collection of discreet entities. The air was warm but something else was hotter. The table under her was cool. She imagined if she opened her eyes, everything would look like it did through a thermal camera.

But opening her eyes was such hard work. Slowly, very slowly, the light crept in. There was far too much of it. She had to retreat and try again. It was her third attempt before she managed.

“Louise…” she whispered.

She’d known it was her, somehow, before she was able to see clearly. Louise looked just the same. Everything did. The medical lab, the equipment tables, and a glimpse of the Cortex beyond.

“Hello, Caitlin. No awareness questions this time.”

Caitlin almost smiled. She still felt so strange. There was something there that hadn’t been before, but it was hard to focus on. Her thoughts were still uncertain, but one of them was coming through loud and clear.

“Cisco?”

Louise smiled. “He’s okay.”

Part of her had known. Part of her had been so certain because it simply couldn’t be any other way. And part of her wanted to cry with relief.

She curled up, trying to find the strength to ask where he was, when she could see him and what had happened. Then she registered that her arms, resting on the top of the lab blanket, were bare. The fabric scratching against her skin was a hospital gown. There was nothing over it. The weight of her thermal suit, the second skin she’d worn for nearly a year, was gone.

“Louise, where’s my suit? I need my suit!”

She pulled frantically at the blanket, wondering at the temperature, trying to kick her sluggish mind into calculating how long she could survive without it and if that was why it was so hard to think.

Louise caught her wrists. She could feel the heat of her entire body through the grip.

“Caitlin, Caitlin calm down. You need to listen to me. I’ll explain.”

Caitlin took a deep breath. She pushed herself up a little so she wasn’t lying flat on her back. “What happened to me?”

Louise sat down on the side of the bed. She handed Caitlin a cup of water and didn’t speak until it had been drunk. “Okay, when I said I’d explain, I was lying, because I don’t know how the hell this works. But… whatever happened, whatever you did, it changed you. Again. Your core temperature has stabilised at sixty. You’re pulling in heat on your own. Without the suit.”

“How is that possible?” Caitlin whispered.

Louise shrugged. “You’re asking the wrong doctor.”

Amongst all the ideas that were beginning to whirl through her head, she latched on to the strangest one. Trying to keep her voice level, she asked, “What colour is my hair? And my eyes?”

“What?”

“ _Please_.” A little of the panic slipped out. “Just… humour me.”

“Okay,” Louise said. “Brown and… brown. Why?”

Caitlin slumped. “It’s a long story.”

Louise nodded. “I’d ask, but I don’t think I want to know.”

Her friend’s aversion to non-medical personal questions was one of the reasons they’d gotten on so well at college. Caitlin was grateful to see that hadn’t changed.

“Can I see Cisco?”

“If you want. I’ll find him. And some pants.”

Caitlin pulled on one of the lab sweatshirts. She eased her legs into the pants and tried to ignore Louise’s careful look as she took a few slow steps down into the Cortex. Her legs felt solid, her knees didn’t ache and her balance was fine.

“How did we get back?” she asked, trying to stretch some of the knots out of her limbs.

“In a helicopter. It landed in the parking lot about ten minutes after Barry picked me up. The soldiers brought you in.”

Caitlin gave her a sharp look. “Eiling’s men? That was stupid. They could have flown us anywhere.”

“Not with Detective West and Iris in there with you. I think they made sure you got home. You want some more water?”

“Sure.”

She did, but not to drink. She held the little plastic cup, tilting it back and forth. There was nothing unusual about it, but she could sense something, something she’d felt in the back of her mind as she drank the first one. It was what she’d sensed from Cisco as the serum had taken hold of her. And now that her head was clear, she knew it wasn’t her imagination, and she knew what it was. What happened next was only a confirmation of her hypothesis.

She concentrated, and the water turned to ice.

She smiled, just a little, and then Cisco rolled into the room in her old wheelchair. She dropped the cup, stumbling forward with her heart in her throat.

“It’s okay!” Cisco exclaimed. “Seriously don’t look at me like that. I just have to stay off my feet for a couple of days. Doctor’s orders.”

There were no words, there really weren’t. Fear, relief, frustration and adoration all battled for control of her tongue. But she could always rely on him to think of something for her.

“You don’t need your suit anymore.”

She shook her head. “No. I’m sorry. You put so much work into it.”

Cisco shrugged. “Not like I mind. And I was thinking once we figure out how your new powers work I could use the collectors and the interface to build you an amplifier.”

“Cisco, you know we’ll have to give the neural interface back to Felicity, don’t you?”

“Only when she asks for it.”

She rolled her eyes. Give him a week, and Cisco would have his own version ready for her to test whether she objected or not.

“Thank you, Cisco.”

He rolled towards her. “Hey, it’s the least I can do. You saved my life.”

She thought back to what she’d said to Barry, and said it to him: “I couldn’t let you die.”

His eyes widened a little. Something flickered through them. He started pushing himself up out of the chair.

“Cisco,” she said warningly, taking a step back.

He ignored her, staggering to his feet with that unforgettable smile on his face. “ _Mine Fürher_!” he cried in his best bad accent. “I can walk!”

She had to catch him. Had to throw her arms around him, supporting him the way he’d always supported her. She felt the heat of his body through his _Space Invaders_ t-shirt. It was warm, cosy and comforting, like a hearth in winter or sunlight on a spring morning.

“Umm… Caitlin…” Cisco said.

“What?” she murmured, resting her head on his shoulder.

“Are you doing that? Because if you’re not, then we may be in trouble.”

“Am I doing what?”

She opened her eyes, and saw the white flakes drifting through the air around them.

Behind her, Louise said, “Oh my god…”

Caitlin couldn’t help it. She laughed. In the middle of STAR Labs, on a hot summer afternoon, it had started to snow.

* * *

They’d been expecting the visit. They hadn’t known what form it would take, but they knew it would come. Barry had thought it would be earlier, but it wasn’t until the evening after Caitlin woke up that the Humvee lumbered into the STAR Labs parking lot.

Barry was in the Cortex with Iris. She’d stayed with him as he’d sat at Cisco and Caitlin’s bedsides. Such a strange reversal of how those two people had come into his life. He didn’t know if he could have done it without Iris’ support. She told him how much Cisco had done to help her cope while he was in a coma, and how even Caitlin’s diagnoses had been encouraging in their own way.

Iris had also sat by Caitlin’s bed, held her hand, and told him the missing chapter of their story. A slow and painful confession of the argument they’d faked so everyone – especially Black’s watchers – would believe the team was irrevocably broken. He hadn’t known what Iris expected him to say afterwards, but she sank gratefully into his arms as he held her and didn’t say anything at all.

She stood next to him as the Humvee arrived. “Be careful,” she whispered.

He nodded. He took the building’s back exit, did a loop of the roof, the side streets, all the levels of the parking lot block and everywhere within a thousand yards of STAR Labs. Only when he was sure they were empty did he turn back and stroll through the building’s front doors to meet Eiling.

The general held something up into the light where Barry could see it. The flash drive that had carried Felicity’s virus.

“Mr Allen, you and your friends committed an act of cyberterrorism against the US military.”

And Eiling had no proof of that, and he knew it. No prints on the drive, nothing he could bring to a remotely open court. Felicity had far too much practice covering her tracks.

“General,” Barry said, “if you were going to arrest me, you would have brought more men.”

“Harrison would be proud.”

Another cheap shot Barry had been expecting. Perhaps Wells would have been. Just maybe, the real one might have too.

“Where is Doctor Clariss?” Eiling asked.

“In protective custody,” Barry told him. “So are Dillon and Morillo. You can try to see them when they get out of prison.”

He didn’t need to add that that Eiling would probably be waiting for a decade. Not that it mattered; without his research records, even Clariss would be starting from zero.

Eiling just grunted; he’d probably been expecting that answer.

“What about Colonel Black?” Barry asked. “What happens to her?”

“Nothing official,” Eiling replied with a certain amount of relish. “But I hear the Hawaii base needs a new commander. But don’t forget that you and your friends will have to run a lot further if you get in my way again.”

Barry sighed. “What if we did you a favour? What if we’re better off without the serum?”

For the first time, Eiling, who’d clearly been expecting a counter-threat, looked uncertain.

“I know how hard it is to keep a secret,” Barry went on. “I guess you know that the Soviet Union tested their first atom bomb four years after we did. We only got four years of nuclear monopoly, and then it turned into mutually assured destruction. How long do you think it would be before somebody else developed their own version of Clariss’ drug, once they knew it was possible? Now you don’t have it, but neither does whoever the Joint Chiefs are telling ghost stories about at the moment. And that’s gotta be better than a super-powered Cold War, right?”

“If there is a war, Mr Allen, it won’t be cold,” Eiling said. “And I will fight it. I took an oath to defend my country.”

“I’m not a soldier,” Barry said. “But I am a cop. My oath was to keep the people of this city safe.”

Eiling sneered. “What do you want, a medal?”

Barry smiled. “You know what, general? Yeah, I kinda do.”

* * *

A few days later, Iris came into the precinct with her father through the buzz of the morning watch change. The night shift was clearing up the last of its paperwork and sleepily handing over to the day staff before heading home for a big breakfast and a well-earned rest. A few officers focussed enough to greet her; if anybody asked, she told them she was interviewing Captain Singh about the inquiry launched into prisoner security at Iron Heights. That got a few chuckles.

Cisco was there already, waiting by her dad’s desk and buzzing with an energy that had nothing to do with the sunny day or the coffee he was finishing. Iris was horrified to see it was leftover station sludge and promised herself that as soon as they were done she was taking him to Jitters to remind him what the good stuff tasted like.

Then Caitlin came in with Crystal. She was wearing one of her deep blue dresses for the first time in almost a year. Cisco grinned when he saw her and waved. Iris walked towards her, sensing the curious looks as they got closer. Everybody knew what had happened the last time they’d been in the building together, but news of the lab van’s presence at the Wells Fargo building had spread as well.

The tension dissipated when she reached Caitlin and they embraced. Her skin was still cool; they figured she was absorbing heat at the same rate most people gave it out. None of that worried Iris, or Cisco, who joined them in the big public hug.

“Look at that,” Andy Bellows said. “The STAR Labs Irregulars back in business.”

“Is that what they call us?” Caitlin asked.

“It beats Cisco La Mancha and Sancho,” Joe said.

The crowd in the bullpen was thickening. The night shift wasn’t leaving yet. Everyone had been told there would be an announcement to do with a recent case, and the sound of speculation was rising. Then all the conversations died away as Captain Singh emerged from his office.

“Good morning. You all know I don’t like doing this, but today’s a special case. There have been a lot of rumours flying around this last week about the arrests of Jared Morillo, Roscoe Dillon and Doctor Edward Clariss. There’s a lot of things about that operation I’m not allowed to tell you, but I can say that the CCPD broke open a conspiracy to steal and sell experimental weapons technology. Everything else is officially classified, so if you’ve got any questions just keep them to yourselves.”

Singh’s resigned tone got a laugh from some of the cops who knew him better. Singh acknowledged the joke and then went on in his most serious tone. “What started this investigation was the shooting of a CCPD officer. Barry Allen.” There was a low rumble of muttering, wondering if that inquiry had been shut down in the name of national security. “And I can announce that this case has been closed. But not the way we expected.” The muttering got louder and Singh held up a hand. “I want to say I’m sorry. I don’t like lying to my officers. There’s a part of this case only a few people knew, but they don’t have to keep it a secret anymore. Come on out.”

Cops, especially the ones in Central City, pride themselves on being hard to shock. But Iris would have been willing to bet good money that only a few jaws didn’t slacken as Barry walked out of Singh’s office, back from the dead for the second time.

“Hey,” he said.

There was a long moment of silence. Iris swore she heard a mug hit the floor. And then the room exploded. Everybody was shouting at once, at Barry, at the captain, and a few more insightful officers had turned to her father and Crystal.

“Settle down!” Singh raised his voice over the noise. “That’s enough!”

It took a few seconds for the audience to remember their age and profession, but they fell silent. Barry stepped forward cautiously.

“I just wanted to say I’m really sorry we had to lie to you. I’ve been hiding out the last two months while I recovered. I wish I could tell you why it all happened, but I can’t. And I just wanted to thank everybody for trying so hard to solve my… umm… murder.”

That got a reluctant snicker and a rueful smile from Crystal. Iris smiled too. You couldn’t stay mad at Barry, no matter how much you wanted to.

Before Barry could say anything else, Singh stepped forward again. “Like I said, this investigation and everything surrounding it is classified. That means you Ms West.” Iris managed a look of mock indignation, which got a louder laugh. “The case is over, so now we can all get back to normal.” He took another breath. “But before we do, I have one more piece of business.

“We might not be welcoming Mr Allen back and closing this case today without some outside assistance. Every cop here knows what’s expected of them when they put on the uniform. But sometimes the job asks for more than that, and if it does, I hope we answer the call. And there are people here who know that this isn’t their job. They aren’t cops. They don’t wear the uniform. But when it counts, they stand up with us anyway. So, with permission from the Chief, I am awarding the Central City Police Medal to our civilian consultants Cisco Ramon and Doctor Caitlin Snow of STAR Labs.”

There was no hesitation this time. No moment’s silence and no surprise. Everybody cheered. The cops in the bullpen, the officers at the desks, Iris, Barry and Captain Singh.

Cisco exchanged a disbelieving look with Caitlin and then almost spun on the spot, looking all around as though he was waiting for the punch line. It wasn’t till Joe gave him a firm shove that he finally starting moving through the crowd of clapping officers with Caitlin trailing, silent but smiling, along in his wake.

The cheering didn’t let up until they reached the front of the bullpen and Cisco stopped, probably wondering if he was supposed to bow or salute or something different. Singh had to grab his hand to shake it. Caitlin beamed, Iris couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked so happy.

Barry stepped forward and dropped the little silver medal around Cisco’s neck. “You earned it, man. You really did.”

Cisco turned red and stuttered something that eventually turned into, “Does this make you Princess Leia?”

Barry laughed. Caitlin rolled her eyes, but straightened up in time to receive her award.

“Thank you, Barry,” she said.

“Thank _you_ ,” Barry said.

Iris pushed her way to the front, so she could loop her arms around her friends’ necks. There was another round of applause. During it, Captain Singh cleared his throat long enough to get their attention. He held out another velvet box to Barry, who just happened to be nearest.

“For the Flash. When you see him.”

Iris pulled Barry away, retreating before Singh could register the expression on his face. Her father came forward and hugged Barry, Cisco and Caitlin in turn.

“You did great.”

Cisco smiled helplessly. Caitlin gave him a thoughtful look and then calmly and deliberately kissed him on the cheek.

Iris stifled a laugh. Barry’s eyebrows shot up. They actually saw the moment where Cisco’s brain came to a stuttering halt.

He stared at Caitlin for a long moment and then asked, “What was that for?”

Caitlin’s smile softened a little. “Everything,” she said.

Before anyone else could comment, there was a shout from the other side of the room. “Captain!”

“What is it?” Singh responded

“Snart and his gang, sir. They just hit an armoured car on Twelfth.”

The news kicked Cisco’s brain back into gear enough for him to look up at Barry. Barry gave him a questioning glance; an unspoken invitation. Cisco’s eyes widened and he turned to Caitlin.

“Well…” she said. “I do need to give Lisa back her wig.”

Behind them, Singh called over the noise, “Alright, people. By the numbers. Leonard Snart is not that special. Joe, Crystal, get out there and take five of the task force with you. You can meet SWAT on route. And Mr Allen?”

Barry’s head snapped up. “Yeah, captain?”

“Now that you’re not dead anymore, don’t you have some work to do?”

“Umm… yeah,” Barry replied. “Of course. I’ll get back to that. Right now. In my lab.” He spun around and as he passed Iris, the awkwardness melted into mischievous joy. “I’ll give you five minutes’ head start.”

Then he disappeared. Her father watched him go and sighed. “Just… be careful.”

“We will, Joe,” Cisco said. “You coming, Iris?”

Iris checked her bag. Notebook, pens, cell phone, backups. Jitters wasn’t going anywhere and arresting the Rogues would definitely put Captain Singh in a good mood. “Of course. Let’s go.”

The lab van beat the police cruisers out of the parking lot by thirty seconds. Under a cloudless morning sky, the streets of Central City held their breath, waiting for a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning.

_The End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As before, I am incredibly grateful to everyone who took the time to read this story. It brought me an awfully long way and I realise we're a decent step off the map as far as series canon is concerned, but I'm happy that so many people wanted to come along too. I hope you all enjoyed the journey.


End file.
